It couldn’t happen twice, could it? The sad answer for Combe fans is yes it could, although not in quite as excruciating circumstances as last November. This time around the Goddington Dene side had been in front or level until Havant plundered a try bang on the full-time whistle with the last play of the game to run out 19-17 winners.

The visitors thought they had scored as early as 5 minutes into the game, but the score was disallowed when the ref spotted some crossing in the build-up. Good goal line defence from Combe kept Havant at bay but on the 15-minute mark, winger James Burton made a fine run leaving three Havant defenders in his wake to score the opener out wide on the right. The conversion was missed.

Havant scored with the next phase of play with a line-out move freeing the scrum half to touch down. Again, the conversion went astray leaving the match tied at 5-5. To be frank, not much happened in the next 20 minutes or so as defences proved their mettle. But on the stroke of half-time Combe scored again through winger Burton with flanker Dave Pohlen making the first thrust and KK Orelaja acting as link man. The deceptively windy conditions were proving uncomfortable for kickers and again the conversion narrowly missed leaving WPRFC up 10-5 at the interval.

Four minutes into the second period Combe extended their lead when a dominant scrum pushed their opponents back at a rate of knots for hooker Ollie Colgate to claim the score. Stand-off Alex Cahill added the 2 points to make it 17-5. Havant came back strongly and, after an attempt in the corner was deemed to be held up, they narrowed to gap to 5 points when a looped pass to their right wing out flanked the Combe defence. The successful conversion meant that there were only 5 points in it with 15 minutes left to play.

Despite opportunities in this last period including good territory from a Jacob Buckley 50/22 kick it was the visitors that secured the win at the very end. Some tiring bodies in the Westcombe Park defence gave the visitors the sniff of an opportunity which they duly took to run in a try from 40 metres. With the touch down close to the posts the conversion was kicked, and it was Havant who celebrated as the whistle went for no side.

There was view that the visitors probably did enough to squeeze the win, but it was still hard to take on top of that defeat on the south coast earlier in the season. Next week Combe make the short trip to Sidcup to play our old rivals. See you on the 51 bus.