RUGBY: Worthing captain James Arthur's weekly column (December 3)

AFTER a needed week's rest, we made the long journey to Bridgwater on Saturday.

Into our team, we welcomed Semi Taulava. Semi is our newest recruit, having spent his time playing with the Taranaki side in New Zealand.

He made his dbut this week in the place of injured No 8, Rob Smith.

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The squad also saw changes in the front row with the return of Adam Halsey. The back row saw the return of myself at blind side and the introduction of Semi. Ben Dudley was back fit playing at fly-half, Matt McLean confirmed his fitness after his second game back as full back.

And it was also pleasing to see Paul Dunkley come back onto the bench, after recovering from injury.

In a must-win game for both sides, it was Bridgwater who started out the stronger team. Only good defence kept them at bay, which was the feature of our game all day.

As we found our stride, we started to create attacking opportunities, which resulted in a break from scrum-half Shane Costigan, and his quick ball allowed lock Charlie McGowan to score the first points of the day.

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A successful conversion meant we took the lead 7-0. Bridgwater came back with an unconverted try, but we finished the first half stronger with a further two tries. One came from a fine individual effort from winger Joe Govett and new boy Semi also crashed over.

This meant we went into half-time 17-5 up. The second half followed the same theme as the weather '” dull and poor.

Bridgwater came back with another unconverted try, while we only managed to convert a penalty. We did, however, stop them achieving a losing bonus point but, disappointingly, we were not able to secure the fourth try to get ourselves the winning bonus point.

The game was a much-needed win and one that saw many improvements. The focus of last week's training for the forwards was scrummaging, which was gruelling, but paid off.

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This week, we began to dominate again and lead from the front, with quicker ball and a touch of flare re-entering the back line. Confidence can be gained from this match and a much-needed platform has been achieved.

This week sees us at home to third-place Rosslyn Park, who managed a big win against Henley on Saturday.

We hope the weather will not deter you all from coming to support and we look forward to seeing you there.

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