Dorking 12 – 19 Westcombe Park
By Kevin Beal
After a disappointing visit to Hertford last week, the Red & Whites were looking to get back on track with the visit of Westcombe Park to The Big Field. The previous encounter back in early October had been, until the final 20 a pretty close affair, and with Coombe, as they are known locally in Southeast London turning Wimbledon over the previous weekend another close match was predicted. And so it was, with Dorking slow out of the traps in the first half and Coombe very much ‘up for it’, with their defence in particular alert and up very quickly (suspiciously so, the Dorking faithful felt), shutting down the Red & Whites before they’d got going.
Kicking off uphill, the ball was returned to the Dorking half by a fired up and abrasive Coombe team who then spent most of the first 20 minutes in the Dorking half. In a fast paced game there were always ging to be errors, and Sir was kept busy as players from both sides overstepped the mark or fumbled the ball. Against the run of play, it was Dorking who scored first with Matt Noble fly hacking through a fumbled catch to collect the ball and score. Converting his try it was Dorking 7 – 0 Coombe.
Spurred on by the try, Dorking spun the ball wide from the re-start only for the Coombe winger to strip the ball and sprint down the touchline seemingly unopposed. A superb cover tackle by Henry Anscombe hauled him down on the 22, but he was able to slip a pass to the supporting centre, again hauled down just short of the line by another fine cover tackle. But Dorking had run out of defenders and the supporting centre Sam Rhodes was able to collect the pop pass and stroll in unopposed for a converted try. 7 – 7.
A red card for Dorking 5 Jasper King on the 26th minute for a ‘tip tackle’ whilst clearing out in the ruck left the Red & Whites down to 14. Making the extra man count, Coombe scored a converted try, 7-14. With Tyler Norwood then coming on to bolster the scrum, wing Louis Flynn departed, and with one less defender to contend with, Coombe ran in a third unconverted try out wide to the right. 7-19 at half time.
The second half saw ‘new boy’ Henry Birch on in the front row in place of James Catton. Honours remained even in the set piece battle with both sides securing their own ball in both the scrum and the line out, although Dorking’s options were limited being a jumper down. Open play was fast and on occasion furious as the Coombe winger saw yellow for tackling off the ball, giving parity of numbers for 10 minutes. Highlight of the half was probably the outrageous chip kick through by front row man Catton, back on for the injured Cal Watson and loitering in the centre channel, for wing Mosley to catch - which he did, only to be penalised for holding on to the ball when tackled. Unable to breach the Coombe defence, the game looked lost for the Red & Whites until with less than 10 minutes to go, Matt Noble hacked on another fumbled ball for what looked like it was going to be a carbon copy of his first half try. Hauled down just short however, he was just able to slip the ball to Ryan Jeffery for the try, converted taking the score to 12-19.
Sensing a dramatic end to the match, the home crowd roared the team on as forward drives took play back into the Coombe half. But the wily Coombe pack had other ideas and a succession of collapsed & re set scrums, bootlaces needing to be retied, pick & drive ‘keep ball moves’ etc saw the clock run down and a frustrated Dorking concede a penalty, enabling the Coombe 9 to tap the ball then hoof it off the park for the final whistle.
Coach Roux commented:
“It was a much-improved performance today by us compared to last week. I thought there were some excellent performances in there and considering we played with 14 men for 60mins, to get a bonus point out of the game was a good effort.
Credit to Westcombe Park who really played well and with officiating decisions going their way ended up recording Dorking 1st Loss at home for the 21/22 season.
No time to lick any wounds. Back to league rugby next week where we will face CS Stags away from home in a must win fixture”
Team:
Charlie Connor, Cal Watson, James Catton, Steve Howorth, Jasper King, Fred Dalton, Joel Grant, Fin Osborne, George Jackson, Henry Anscombe, Ryan Jeffery, Matt Noble © Fraser Mosley, Louis Flynn, Cam Cowell, Tyler Norwood, Henry Birch, Cam Osborne
