Dorking RFC 20 Colchester Ravens 19

Firstly I would like to thank Ross Cowie for coming down and acting as manager and linesman on a wet Saturday afternoon.

Well this was a game of two halves indeed.

The first half had us playing in to the wind and down hill. Dorking went into the lead early on with a penalty kick from their full back from the half way line. With the rain coming down this was a game of errors by both teams, which meant a forward orientated game. The Ravens scrum was as solid as always and dominated throughout the first half, continually pushing the Dorking scrum backwards.

The first Colchester try came from new wing Jermaine Watson. This came from broken play tidied up by the fowards on our own 22 and quick hands through to Paul Summerson joining the line from full back who off loaded to Watson to beat 2 defenders to score his first Colchester try for the club near to the posts. This was converted by fly-half Matt Wadling.

The Ravens second try came from a line out on Dorkings ten metre line. Superb line out ball taken by George Liversidge who passed to scrum half Eamon Maguire and out to the backs. Fly half Wadling popped the ball to Number 8 Andrew Goodbourn who took on two defenders and put flanker Oliver Gozzett through with a delightful offload to run in from the 22.

Dorkings 12 was yellow carded after an incredibly dangerous tackle on Matt Waddling.

Dorking gained another penalty. At the end of the first half the score was 12-6 to Colchester.

The second half started with uncontested scrums as Dorkings hooker left the field at half time. The dynamics of the game changed with the dominance of the forwards being taken away from us. With team changes coming, the forward dominated bench had not benefitted us and we struggled to get past the strong defensive line of Dorking.

Dorking have turned the tables by using their rolling mall to their advantage and have pushed us down the hill and scoring on one occasion. Colchester have broken once more and Alex Peterson has scored his debut try for the Ravens after using his pace to beating about 4 Dorking defenders to go over the try line. The score was now 19-13 with Colchester still leading. Dorking have then come back with a well worked try down the narrow side and their full backhas converted to make it Dorking 20 Colchester 19.

After a short break in the game due to a Dorking player being stretchered off ( we hope that he is ok ) with four minutes of play left it was all or nothing from the Ravens. After retaining the ball for all the remaining time we were awarded a penalty in the final seconds, which Wadling was unfortunate to miss.

We now look forward to the return fixture on the 20th February.