All Blacks beat Worthing away but miss out on bonus points

The All Blacks had beaten Worthing 26-19 at home earlier in the season in what was an end to end game.

The men in black started by playing into a near gale force wind and opted to keep the ball fairly tight to ensure possession. The forwards lead by Captain and hooker Ben Dewey made in roads into the Worthing half. At scrum time 19 year old Martyn Woodhead in his first start at prop was destroying his opposite number driving the scrum back time and time again.

Despite the total dominance of territory and possession the All Blacks found breaking down the heroic Worthing defence difficult. When an opportunity was on the pass was forced in the strong wind resulting in mistakes much to the teams frustration.

After 20 minutes of total dominance all the All Blacks had to show was a penalty for fly half Rhys Clarke 0-3.

To make matters worse moments later the All Blacks were adjudged to have killed the ball at the ruck 40 metres out. Using the strong wind the Worthing 10 slotted the penalty 3-3.

Hill continued to press for the elusive try with the centres of Max Wilson and Liam Hopwood making great inroads vs a physical backline that included some South Sea islanders. Despite the onslaught they could not break down the resilient defence.

With the last play of the half the All Blacks were adjudged to have killed the ball again at the ruck and once again using the wind the Worthing fly half struck a 40 metre penalty to lead 6-3 at the break.

At half time Burgess Hill regrouped and were a little confused by the score bearing in mind Worthing had not entered the All Blacks 22 all game. In contrast the men in black had kept hold of the ball like a spoilt child for at least 90% of the half and only had 3 points to show for it.

The first 20 minutes of the second half were more open with both teams have spells if play. In this period full back Jordan Sayers started to show his skills jinking round players, running angles to open up the defence and using his boot to good effect.

At the 20 minute mark the All Blacks grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck again. Following a break by the backs the ball was knocked on in the process of scoring. At the Worthing 5 metre scrum the black pack pushed Worthing back over their own line. The Worthing scrum half carried the ball over his own line resulting in a scrum to Hill.

At the 5 metre scrum the black pack drove the Worthing pack over their own line on 3 occasions before Worthing collapsed or killed the ball. The pack looked bemused wondering why a penalty try was not coming. At the next scrum they thought they would try something different. No.8 Dave Wattam picked the ball and went blind passing to scrum half Sam David who passed the ball out to winger Dave Daly who dived over in the corner. Clarke stepped up and slotted the conversion from the touchline to lead 6-10.

In the last 15 as Worthing tired holes started to open in their backline and the likes of Hopwood, Daly, Sayers and David started to exploit this making break after break outwide. The next score was inevitable, following a break by Wilson into the heart of the Worthing half replacement scrum half Massimo Hiller picked up and went on a run before releasing second row and Philippine International Ash Heward who took on 3 defenders. In the contact Heward offloaded to Sayers who drew his defender before passing to Hopwood who dived in to score in the corner. On the now very sticky pitch Clarke missed the extras 6-15.

Hill spent the last 7-8 minutes chasing tries in search of the bonus point however their hunger resulted in forcing it rather than building for the score and as a result no further scores came.

The men in black will be pleased with the result but disappointed they did not rack up some further tries.

The MoM award winning a free session at Sussex Osteopathy went to Martyn Woodhead who in his first start at prop was immense.

Next week the All Blacks host Holbrook at home KO 2:15pm.