Fantastic Win Progresses Colts to National U18 Cup Quarterfinals

By Tony Lewis

Horsham Colts entered unchartered territory last Sunday when they travelled up to South London to face the Champions Elect of Kent Old Elthamians who have won all of their fixtures to date this season. The squad plus supporters travelled up from Horsham in their bright yellow 1970’s ex-royal navy bus as they wished to arrive in style.

The oppositions ground and facilities were of a high standard as one would expect from a club whose senior first XV play at National 1 level which is one step below full time professional. On watching the opposition warming up, what was very evident was that their forwards would massively outweigh Horsham’s forwards and indeed it was hard to believe that some of them were only 18 as they could easily have passed for their early 20’s. The Horsham squad and coaches discussed this prior to kick off and it was made very clear to the boys that a quick game with moving the ball wide gave us our best chance.

Straight from kick off, this is exactly what Horsham proceeded to do and ran the large opposition pack around the pitch for a full 70 minutes. Naturally enough Horsham had to withstand a battering at times with relentless charges from OE’s large forwards down the middle of the pitch. Horsham’s defence was outstanding ably led by the likes of Simon Powel, Vince Everitt and Eddie Grogan.

Having withstood a period of pressure, Horsham started to assert themselves moving the ball quickly through the hands with some fine penetrating darts from scrum half Aaron Linfield and his half back partner Joe Blake. A period of Horsham pressure resulted in a break down the middle from the forwards, a quick recycle of possession and the ball then being spread left for a try to be finished off by prolific winger Max Paterson. 5-0 to Horsham. Shortly afterwards one of the OE’s centres who is on the books at Saracens managed to make a midfield break which led to a try.

Just before half time, Horsham once again gained the upperhand and believed they had scored in the corner. The referee however was unsighted and was unable to give the try. It did not matter as shortly afterwards Joe Blake made a break and off loaded to on rushing centre, Alfie Burchfield who touched-down beneath the posts. Blake converted and on the stroke of half time was also able to convert a penalty meaning that Horsham led 15-5 at the break.

OE’s departed for the sanctuary of their changing room for the half-time talk, but Horsham were happy to huddle out in the middle with the coaching staff and talk things through. The simple message was “more of the same boys”.

The second-half did not start that way, as some errors from Horsham led to a scrappy try from OE’s which was converted making the score 15-12. From that point however there is no doubt that Horsham dominated the rest of the game. They had 2 or 3 chances to score, including getting over the line, but not being able to ground the ball. This pressure did result in another Blake penalty taking the score to 18-12.

As the clock ticked away and nerves began to fray, an excellent move from the Horsham backs led to fall back Charlie Best scoring in the corner. Pandemonium ensued as Horsham realised they were more than 2 scores away and time was almost up. Horsham managed to regather the ball from the subsequent kick off and put it out of play to the sound of the referee’s final whistle.

This was an absolutely outstanding effort from Horsham’s boys against a very large, well drilled team who had no less than 2 international players in their ranks and about 7 other players who are all on the books of premier league clubs.

Head coach Tony Lewis was understandably elated at the final whistle and said:-

“We asked the boys to give us everything they could and that is absolutely what they did. Even when Skipper Sam Jewell had to go off injured, his replacement Dan Phelps fitted in seamlessly. The front row of Earle, Evans and Grogan were immense as were Brock at number 8, along with young Jem Minto in the centre (having his best ever game for Horsham) and Conor Riley on the wing. The whole squad deserve immense praise. They are a really tight knit bunch and we are now very much looking forward to our tour to St Maxent in France over Easter where we have plenty to celebrate!”