Beaten Blues fail to trouble the scorers
Camberley 52 Chichester 0 London one south
Chichester endured a day to forget in Surrey – and it was the first time Blues had failed to get on the scoreboard since a trip to Hertford in October 2016.
Non-availability required reorganisation in the forwards and there were six changes to the team that beat Cobham at Oaklands Park in the last game. Hamish Minton returned in the second row with Sam Trodd and Gareth Davies in the backs. Scott Gibbs and Tom Wheeler, making first XV debuts, were joined on the bench by Matt Mclagan.
Camberley received the ball from kick-off and immediately attacked from their 22m line. Four passes later the ball was in the hands of their monster Fijian outside centre who crashed through three tackles to dot down. Converted, 7 - 0.
The next period of play was spent in the opposition’s half. However, they struggled to break down a well-organised Camberley defence and the best chance was a Rhys Thompson chip over.
Cam Hopkins was beaten to the ball by Camberley’s veteran full back for a drop out. A Chichester infringement provided Camberley with an exit and the kick found touch 10m from Blues’ try line.
After a series of pick and goes the ball was spun out
for the opposition winger to cross the whitewash, converted for a 14-0 lead.
Chichester upped their tempo but with ball in hand Blues looked nervous and a catalogue of handling errors and misplaced passes meant that possession and field position couldn’t be converted into points.
On 25 minutes Camberley broke out of their own half and the ball found its way to the outside centre for his second try, converted, 21-0.
Chichester were still
fighting and, after a series of opposition infringements, had a scrum five metres out and a chance to score. Within 30 seconds the ball was at the other end of the pitch and Blues found themselves defending five metres out, unable to stop the Camberley pack driving over for a bonus point try. That made it 26-0 at the interval.
At the start of the second half Blues once again found themselves defending and it took Camberley five minutes to break through and score,
33-0. The Blues again upped the tempo but couldn’t retain the ball long enough to create any chances.
A long clearance kick saw the opposition break deep into Blues’ half and the ball was driven over the line for another converted try, 400. On 57 minutes Camberley were reduced to 14 men.
Chichester were unable to take advantage of the extra man and the game became scrappy, with handling errors and misplaced passes from both teams, until a lovely cross field pass found its way into the hands of the flying Fijian for his third try.
With seven minutes left another yellow card saw Camberley down to 14 again. But after an injury and no fit replacements, Chichester were also down to 14, before Camberley scored a final try, Chichester: Drayson, Brown, Deavall, Wright, Minton, Makasi, Wallace (capt.), Norton, Seaman, Thompson, Trodd, Jenkinson, Miller, Hopkins, Davies, Gibbs, Wheeler and Mclagan.
Chichester host KCS Old Boys on Saturday (3pm).