Worthing Raiders 34 Dorking 61

Dorking were this week’s visitors to Roundstone Lane, currently sitting in second place in the league. Still looking for their first win of the season, Raiders were in for another difficult afternoon.

Jimmy Staples and Ollie Streeter were not available for selection and Tom Bowen picked up an injury in the game against Oxford Harlequins the previous week. Finlay Glass, Rob Ure and Kieron Tomlinson returned to the squad.

With less than twenty-four hours to kick off both Jack Lake and Will Gearing-Grief withdrew from the selected squad. On Saturday morning Ben Featherstone and Alex Havers were the last-minute replacements. Ben making his first appearance of the campaign after injury pre-season, and Alex stepping up from the ‘Seconds’ at short notice.

Dorking kicked off but the hosts made a fast start controlling the ball for the first couple of minutes. From a lineout Raiders set up a maul and drove towards the try line. When progress was stopped the ball moved wide to the right wing and Jake Rutherford scored in the corner. Dillon Worsley converted to give the hosts a 7-0 lead after three minutes.

Dorking replied immediately after Raiders failed to secure the restart. Their try was converted and the scores were tied at 7-7. Three minutes later Dillon Worsley kicked a penalty to regain the lead for the home side, 10-7. The visitors took the lead in the twelfth minute with an unconverted try, 10-12, and then extended their lead with a converted try in the sixteenth minute, 10-19.

Sam Myles and Jake Rutherford both made useful breaks to put Raiders in good field position. Harrison Dakin then made an excellent burst through the visitors’ defence from twenty-five metres but was brought down a metre from the try line. At the breakdown Dorking received a yellow card.

At this point Raiders lost Elliott Luke to an injury and shortly after Harrison Dakin also left the game injured. Dillon Worsley closed the gap to 13-19 in the twenty-fourth minute with a penalty but Dorking hit back straight back with a converted try, 13-26.

Raiders had lost the two players that had responsibility for throwing in at the lineout, both being hookers. Thus, for the rest of the game the front row consisted of three props.

The visitors scored two converted tries in the next ten minutes to stretch their lead to 13-40. This was followed closely by Dillon Worsley going off injured when he was having a fine game with ball in hand and from the kicking tee. To add insult to injury Frank Taggart was issued with a yellow card which players, coaches and spectators found very difficult to understand.

The half ended with the visitors scoring again to lead at the break by 13-47. Although Raiders had played some good rugby at times in the first half, injuries and errors had put them in a poor position to get anything out of this game.

Half time score: Worthing Raiders 13 Dorking 47