1st XV match reports

National League Three South

London Scottish 26 Havant 5 

Scottish again failed to impress but secured all five points on offer thanks to a late and decisive intervention by Charlie Broughton, and also to Havant’s inability to match their forward drive with any threat out wide.

The Hampshire side will on this showing surely retain their National League status. They matched Scottish up front throughout the game, preventing the home side from making headway in mauls, and three times repelled Scots’ attempts to turn attacking lineouts into scores.

Fortunately for the misfiring favourites, Havant were with one exception unable to make any use of the considerable possession they gained, twice passing up overlaps, and on other occasions misplacing critical passes when the home defence looked ill at ease.

In fairness, they suffered appalling luck, losing a prop in the warm-up and two backs to nasty injuries as the game progressed.

From the start Scottish looked out of sorts, and the first half hour was entirely forgettable, with Scottish comfortable securing all their own set piece ball but unable to do anything useful with it. Several times the home side set up mauls, but the chunky Havant forwards turned the drive back each time.

Yet from one of these misfiring attacks, Scottish constructed a fine score. A lineout catch and drive came to naught and Havant anticipated clearing their lines from the ensuing scrum, but Scottish scrambled the visitors’ possession and pounced. From their own scrum, Owain Walbyoff and Lee Cholewa moved the ball swiftly, Rory Greenslade-Jones created the gap, and Duncan Hayward collected the ball on his way through to the line. Cholewa converted.

The score should have relaxed the Scots but the performance did not improve, yet the half closed with an exhilarating try in defiance of what had gone before.  It began with Scottish defending earnestly near their own line, when Walbyoff stripped the ball from attacking hands. Surprisingly, with the half time whistle due, he and Cholewa elected not to kick clear, but chose to run, and most of the side got a hand on the ball as it was moved briskly through several phases. Finally Gareth Swales was held up a few metres from the Havant line, but Greenslade-Jones was on hand to regather and dive over.

Cholewa missed the kick but the score heartened the Scots support on a bitter day, and within minutes of the restart the result was secured when Swales struck lucky. A Havant pass flew off the shoulder of a colleague and into Swales’s arms. He was 70m from the Havant line but given his pace and a clear run, Havant soon gave up the chase. Cholewa kicked the goal from in front.

If that should have triggered a Scottish onslaught, or at the very least a concerted attempt to secure the fourth try and the bonus point, none came, and as the game went on the home side looked ever less likely to score. Havant got on the scoreboard when Mr Woodsman punished the Scots for starting a scrap in midfield. A Scottish scrum award was turned into a penalty against. Ngapaku kicked for the corner and from the drive Barfoot flopped over.

Long before the end the warmth of the bar was all too tempting, but the final minutes were illuminated by the appearance of young Charlie Broughton, who got his hands on the ball three times, made two good runs with his first touches. With a minute to go, he profited from breaks by Alex Alesbrook and Anton Petzer to weave his way through the traffic and over the line, to set up a third successful kick for Cholewa, and, crucially, secure a frankly undeserved bonus point.

Not a great display, but results and scores elsewhere were encouraging, Scottish climbed a place to third, and there are still 15 matches to go.

Paul McFarland

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