Depleted Combe just miss out

Westcombe Park Extra 1st XV traveled to Dorking on Saturday with a much changed side to the teams put out against Chichester and Bishop Stortford the previous two weeks, still we managed to get 17 guys together and based on the warm up few could have given us too much hope with balls being dropped and the lack of understanding in passing a ball then hitting a tackle bag!.

The game kicked off and Combe was a even match to their opponents, Alex Lord put in a good shift around the park for 80 minutes and scrum half Joe Birch also having a good game bossing his pack around and bringing good tempo to the game, Combe took the lead from a joe Simpson penalty 0-3, the game was evenly in the balance throughout with both sides trying to get a proper grip on the game and just before halftime it was dorking who got the first try after a scrum and good forward play, try converted 7-3.

Half time 7-3 the game evenly in the balance.

'Combe started the second half brightly, a sniping break from fly half Joe Simpson who with a change of speed backed himself and also had the strength to go over for a great individual try, conversion missed 7-8.
Shortly after another Simpson penalty extended Combe's lead 7-11.

Dorking hit back with a try of there own to regain the lead and also added a penalty to take the score to 17-11, with time running out Combe took the game to dorking, a heavy tip tackle to hooker Callum buckler resulting in the hooker leaving the field, a scrum 5 meters out with resulted in Ryan Hackett powering his way over for the try, the referee calling the kick as the last play of the game, unfortunately Simpson pushed the conversion just to the right of the posts and the game ended 17-16. Combe can take good positives from this with a scratch squad put together the spirit in the team was good.

Team: 1.paddy Briggs 2.callum buckler 3.jack Lloyd 4.alex lord 5.jamie Taylor 6.dan fox 7.richard halstead 8.nathan chrichton 9.joe birch 10.joe Simpson 11.james kenward 12.ryan Hackett 13.jack Robertson 14.matt whitting 15.steve McNamara 16.billy bignell 17.harry rogers