McGowan feels mid-table is a realistic goal

McGowan made his first start of the season, after a 12-week ban, and played a large part in an excellent team performance which resulted in Worthing’s second National 1 win of the season.

Speaking after the game, McGowan admitted that he is delighted to be back playing again and said: “It’s been a long time out and it’s good to get back involved and good to get a scoreline like that as well.

“If you make a mistake in this league, the opposition will punish you and we’ve been leaking a lot of points on the back of that.

“But the defence today was just quality. The boys stuck at it and grinded it out to keep them out and Ollie Richards’ try at the end was the icing on the cake, really.

“Mid-table is definitely a realistic goal. It’s just small things that are the difference between sides. Rosslyn Park last week put quite a big score against us but that was because of our mistakes that let us down.

“If we can defend like we did today, there’s no reason why we can’t compete with the best in the league.”

On what it means to be back playing again, McGowan said: “It’s amazing to be playing for the club in National 1.

“It’s been almost six months since I played and I missed the play-off game as well. There was a lot of stuff that went on over the summer about bans and whatever else, so just to finally get back on the field and just run around with the boys means everything to me.”