Chichester so close to famous comeback at Gosport and Fareham
Chichester took a losing bonus point from a 24-21 defeat at Gosport and Fareham in Hampshire 1.
The Blues made six changes, with Lewis Underwood, Dan Heriot and Phil Dickin coming into the pack, Jamie Norris and Fin West joining the backs and Fin Glass on the bench.
On a bright sunny afternoon, with a gusting wind coming off the Solent, Gosport and Fareham kicked off, with the ball barely making the 10m line.
Chichester were immediately on the offensive and, with the wind at their backs, had the opposition pinned back in their red zone for nearly 10 minutes.
When Gosport finally managed to cross the halfway line it took a tackle from Jamie Norris, on the 5m line to stop a certain try.
With Gosport’s confidence growing, Chichester found themselves under the cosh as the opposition forwards tried to batter their way through the Blues’ defence.
On 19 minutes they made the breakthrough when ball was moved out wide for a try on the overlap.
Chichester upped the tempo and Gosport conceded a penalty and were marched back 10m for backchat. Blues went for a tap penalty and after a series of pick and goes the ball was knocked on, inches from the try line.
With Chichester dominating possession they were rewarded with a try on 34 minutes when Owen Tucker stole the ball at the breakdown before charging forward and offloading to Roy Davidson who scored next to the posts. It was converted by Rory Minton. 5-7.
Gosport were straight back on the attack and after testing the Chichester defence for nearly five minutes they finally broke through to score under the posts. The conversion went under the crossbar but was awarded.
Chichester kicked off into the wind and were immediately under pressure after a couple of handling errors. A chip over the top from Gosport bounced awkwardly and Blues’ scramble defence was unable to prevent the opposition crossing the whitewash, converted for 19-7 after 45 minutes.
Gosport increased their lead on 54 minutes with an unconverted bonus point try – 24-7 with Blues seemingly out of it.
However, Minton delivered a low testing kick from the restart which was cleared into touch by Gosport. From the lineout, the ball was spun out to Mike Burton who progressed over the halfway line before passing to Minton, who offloaded to the supporting Huw Binfield.
Chichester’s No8 shrugged off two defenders and ran the ball in from 30m to score under the posts. converted by Minton 24-14.
For the next 20 minutes play ebbed and flowed, with both teams struggling with handling in the windy conditions.
From a Blues’ scrum on the 22m line, Minton whipped the ball out to Gareth Davies whose show and go saw him advance to 10m before offloading to Heriot.
Chichester’s young lock burst through the Gosport defence to find himself 45m from the try line with only the full-back to beat. He dummied him for a try under the posts, converted by Minton – 24-21 with four minutes left.
With Gosport rattled, Blues had one final opportunity to secure an unlikely victory but, having made some progress towards the try line, a crunching tackle saw the ball knocked forward. Gosport secured the ball from the scrum and kicked it into touch, leaving Chi beaten but taking a losing bonus point.
MoM was Dan Heriot.