Lewes 15 Tonbridge Juddians 3
Report from Geoff Pettitt
With Lewes at the bottom of the table and TJs just above them on points difference this game at Lewes was yet another four-pointer – a must-win match for both sides.
TJs started strongly and dominated early possession and territory and it looked as though they would build up a good score. A few good chances went a-begging with Farmer, MacNamarra and Mitchell all going close. The three-quarters as a line were passing well and showing much promise in contrast to recent weeks when the ball was often just kicked away to the opposition.
Finally, TJs got their just reward. Lewes’ forwards were caught offside at the ruck and Smyth duly kicked the goal from about twenty metres out and straight in front. This was deserved reward for their early-game superiority. Regrettably, the final pass was often not taken and there were no tries to show for their efforts.
Lewes finally managed to get their game together and began to pressurize TJs in the scrums. An attack to the left hand corner, the result of a penalty kick to touch, gave Lewes a good position but having won the line-out they knocked on in the centre.
Lewes had the better of the last ten minutes of the first half and it was no surprise when, from a scrum, they attacked down the narrow side and found TJs out-numbered there. Right winger Sharp crossed to score the try. The conversion failed and TJ’s albeit deserved lead had lasted just 25 minutes.
At half-time TJs could look back on a pretty good first period. They will, however, have felt disappointed that their possession had not resulted in their holding the lead and indeed a substantial one.
In the second half, this time playing into a low sun, TJs started strongly and spent most of the first fifteen minutes in the Lewes half. But the game as a whole became untidy and shapeless and, as in the first half, possession produced no points for the visitors. TJs, very unusually, were struggling a little at the line-out and as the game progressed they suffered more and more in the scrum so much so that they lost some four put-ins against the head.
Half-way through the second period TJs found themselves back on their own line but in position to take a relieving 22 drop-out. The ball was kicked long so that there was no TJ in position to pressurise the kicker out on Lewes’ left wing. He picked his spot and kicked ahead over the advancing defender. The ball was allowed to bounce and it did so straight into the arms of the attacking player – Lewes’ left wing Mills. Gratefully, he caught the ball and strolled over the line for the try. There was no conversion but now at 10 – 3 down TJs had to score a try and a conversion just to draw level. As in previous weeks throughout this season, a rashly taken TJ kick had resulted in a gift score for their opposition.
TJs had some twenty minutes to score and they did try hard. From a quickly taken free kick Piacevsky broke away. No. 8 Carroll was in support and off-loaded to Bournat who wriggled, twisted and battered his way to within a metre or two of the line before being brought down. Farmer followed up a Smyth cross-kick and gathered well. He ran across the field and it looked as though at any moment he would pick his gap, straighten up and go through the defence to touch down. It did not happen.
TJs missed with a penalty kick at goal when a touch kick to the corner may have been the better option. And that, with fifteen minutes of the match still to run, was more or less TJ’s last opportunity to score.
In their anxiety to run the ball TJs turned the ball over to the opposition a number of times. Lewes took advantage and, as in the first half, they finished the match with a strong and prolonged attack. After working their way into TJ’s 22 and following three successive five metre scrums which had TJ’s pack reeling, Lewes produced the coup-de-grace when their pack drove the ball over the TJ’s line for No. 8 Arbuthnot to score. Once more the conversion kick failed to find its mark so that when the final whistle blew, the score was Lewes 15 Tonbridge Juddians 3.
This defeat leaves TJs on their own at the bottom of London Three South East and it will take some real, and hitherto rarely seen, effort and good fortune for them to move from this lowly position.
TJs played a solid first half without really benefiting from their possession and control of territory. Without the points to show for their efforts in the loose where Carroll, Wagstaff, Carlton and Bournat were prominent and in their encouraging back play, their game in the second half largely lost its shape. Much of this has to do with self-confidence, where success breeds success, but this indispensable quality has been lacking all season.
There is, however, still time for a reversal of fortunes but it has got to come soon. Lewes clearly have suffered much the same sort of disappointing season as TJs perhaps even more so for last season they were playing one league up in London South Two. They were on the back foot for most of the first half but as time went on and their visitors failed to score they gained in their own self-confidence and fully utilised their superiority in the tight scrums which was where, in the final analysis, this game was won and lost.
Tonbridge Juddians: Mitchell; MacNamarra, Ravilious (capt), Wesley, Farmer; Smyth, Piacevsky; Stevenson (Wallace 70), Stoor (Wallace 48-58), Underhill, Carlton, Fitzpatrick, Wagstaff, Ure (Bournat 55), Carroll.
Next Saturday TJs have a tough home game at The Slade to Deal and Betteshanger who are currently third in the table and who beat TJs resoundingly by 48 – 7 last September.
