It is not often that a team that has out-scored its opponents by four tries to two will feel less disappointed at the final outcome being a three point loss, particularly if it has missed all four of its conversions! That was the somewhat strange state of affairs at The Slade, Tonbridge Juddians’ home ground, on Saturday. What the score-line hid, however, was the home side’s profligacy with their own ball and the extraordinary defensive efforts that the Stags had made in this gripping National Division 3 encounter. As it was, they did at least have the consolation of two bonus points for their try haul and the closeness of that losing margin so their efforts had not gone unrewarded.
TJs, whose pack and in particular its Kiwi engine room was formidable in size, had drawn first blood with two early penalty goals and, with the second of these offences also seeing CS’s Ross McClymont consigned to the bin, this had all the look and feel about it of being a very long hard day at the office.
The naughty step ten minutes were weathered without further mishap and, remarkably, CS’s backs even had some ball to play with and were starting to look dangerous, the more so once the team had been restored to its full complement. With a series of CS forward drives tying in opposition defenders, space was made on the half hour for centre Anthony Hitchcock to go over wide out for 6-5 and game on!
This was the cue for the home side to up it a gear, leading to a quite remarkable ten minute spell, pretty well all played in the Stags’ 22. Loose-head Tom Williams had already had to leave the field with a shoulder injury and into the breach strode James Buncle, he of dual Scottish-Norwegian ancestry who, fortunately, had added some propping experience to his cv when on international duty for Norway for whom he normally plays hooker. He was, however still very short of game time since coming back from last year’s broken leg. David Sole would have been proud of his efforts.
A combination of some poor decision making by the home side (although opting for scrums rather than line-out drives or going for the shot at goal were not necessarily among these and indeed this seemed like much the more obvious call to make at the time) together with poor execution - you do need to be able to control the ball at the base on the other hand - and heroic Stags’ defence with no one found wanting meant that there was a great roar of relief from the visitors’ bench when the half-time whistle was blown with no further addition to the score.
CS could be under no illusions that the second half was likely to be any more of a comfortable proposition up-front. However, there was then the further encouragement of a well-worked backs try just two minutes after the break with winger Ross McClymont touching down in the corner for CS’s second unconverted try.
TJs struck back more or less immediately when their pack at last succeeded in doing what they had only threatened to do at the end of the first-half in driving a maul over for a converted try.
At last, it seemed that TJs were going to make their physical advantages tell and, indeed soon, CS were in much greater trouble as scrum-half Antony Lavea - who had been his usual busy self - was sin-binned for what was adjudged to be a stamp. Re-arranging and playing with fourteen against fifteen against these giants (two of their backs looked like they had made the conversion to the union code a little earlier than Sam Burgess!) was a stiff proposition. Almost immediately a kickable penalty was conceded, an opportunity which the home side this time accepted.
TJs were now leading by six and - with some fifteen minutes of the game left to play - they eased into a seemingly comfortable 13 point lead when the perhaps inevitable happened: a penalty try was at last conceded following a collapsed scrum.
CS were far from finished, however, and came storming back with a prolonged assault of their own which culminated in quick hands yielding a third CS try, this time scored by wing, Courteney Morrison, but again in the corner.
They then managed to put the cat back well and truly amongst the pigeons when - with still the best part of ten minutes to play - more sparkling back play resulted in another Courteney Morrison score and a slightly more manageable conversion which was, however, again missed. With the score 23-20 though, anything could still happen. As it was, it was CS that again came under pressure for most of this period although there were a couple of tantalising opportunities to break out, not least right at the death, when the chance seemed to be just about on of a length of the field dash by James Houstoun for glory! Discretion was deemed to be the better part of valour with the option of the clearing kick taken and who can argue against that pragmatic decision? The two points that had been garnered were most welcome in this ever so competitive league!
Westcombe Park, for so long the league leaders but now lying only third, are the visitors to Duke’s Meadows on Saturday. Kick-off is 1400.

CS Rugby 1863 scorers:

Tries:

Hitchcock
McClymont
Morrison (2)