1st XV match reports |
|
| September 24th 2005 |
London League Division One |
|
Worthing 16 London Scottish 17 This may prove to be a crucial victory for Scottish over one of their main promotion rivals; at all events it will be a boost that they overcame a resilient Worthing side who had beaten them three times last season by less than a score. It is often said that the mark of a good team is the ability to scrape wins when playing badly; last season Scottish made a habit of losing such close encounters. This time, they were certainly not playing well. With barely a quarter of the match left Scottish trailed 16-3, and twice in injury time Ben Coulson had penalty attempts to win the game for Worthing. Ralph the Piper, who accompanies Scottish wherever they play, would have been forgiven for playing the theme from The Great Escape. After a lacklustre opening, the visitors’ game declined and Worthing visibly grow in confidence. In the opening minutes Firkin had a drop goal attempt disallowed – it had looked good from the stand – but undaunted the home side soon took a 6-0 lead from penalties by Coulson. Having missed when a Scottish tackler was penalised for not releasing, he came good first when a Scottish forward slipped the binding at a scrum and then after a late tackle by Rory Greenslade-Jones which also earned him a yellow card. Scottish indeed ceded half a dozen penalties in that spell but gradually pulled themselves together. A penalty in their favour in midfield enabled Tom Williams to kick to the corner; The catch and drive was resisted as was an attempt to move the ball wide but eventually Max Evans found Williams in the pocket and he slotted a drop goal. Scottish were soon in more trouble though. Evans was caught on the break, and penalised; Worthing tapped and ran, and as Greenslade-Jones and Josh Heke missed tackles, Coulson put Stevens in for the score, and converted himself. Scottish had had chances: Greenslade-Jones almost got Fraser Smeaton away in the corner, Heke broke clear but could not reach the support with his final pass, and other chances went begging. Worthing too missed golden opportunities. After the break first Coulson missed again when Evans was penalised for getting round a scrum too quickly, then Heke just got to Coulson’s shirt to claw him back from the line as he spurned an overlap and tried to score himself, and soon afterwards Don, similarly, was caught on the line when he should have used men wide. In the end a further penalty was all the home side earned. Failure then to make their position count cost Worthing the game. David Box and Colman McCarthy had meanwhile come on, and gradually the changes paid off. Less than 20 minutes remained when Box and Byford made 50 metres, exchanging passes up the blind side before Evans took the play deep into Worthing’s 22. Twice Scottish followed Worthing’s example, wasting overlaps and giving the defence easy chances to block, but persistence finally brought a score when Heke released Matt Vines, coming in at just the right angle. Williams converted from in front: 16-10 and game on. From the restart Scottish pressed again and Worthing were unable to clear their lines. As they offended persistently it was easy for Scottish to control the game but still a score would not come until finally Williams released Greenslade-Jones to dot down on the far side, leaving Williams a nasty kick to nudge Scottish ahead by a point. That he did. Scottish then had eight minutes or so to either consolidate their lead or hold out. They almost managed to do neither. Worthing pressed, but the visitors made life hard for themselves by trying to run the ball out of defence rather than kick for safety. Twice they made a mess of things. First they were harshly penalised for pulling down a lineout when the Worthing throw was so squint it almost missed the lineout altogether; then they were penalised on the far side for coming in at the side of a ruck formed when Butler was hauled down 20m out, the winger having broken clear after an interception in midfield when the Scots were trying something far too ambitious for the circumstances. 15. Matt Vines, 14. Fraser Smeaton, 13. Rory Greenslade-Jones, 12. Josh Heke (Chris Webb) , 11. Callum Morris, 10. Tom Williams, 9. Max Evans, 1. Mat Johnson, 2. Paul Byford, 3. Magnus Macdonald, 4. Mike Goodbody, 5. Lee Soper, 6. James Street, 7. James Templeman, 8. Alex Alesbrook Scorers: Tries: Vines, Greenslade-Jones Cons: Williams 2; Drop goal: Williams Yellow Card: Greenslade-Jones 15 mins Scoring sequence: 3-0 (8 mins), 6-0 (16), 6-3 (22), 13-3 (29), 16-3 (49), 16-10 (64), 16-17 (74) Paul McFarland |
|
