100 years of rugby marked in great style
Worthing Rugby Club hosted a day of celebrations to mark 100 years in existence – albeit a year late.
And Worthing Raiders made sure it went with a bang as they treated the large crowd to an entertaining 29-21 win over Bury St Edmunds.
Cassius Cleaves, Will Hobson and Connor Slevin made their Raiders debut. Matt McLean moved to fly half and Jack Lake returned.
The atmosphere was festive all day and more than 900 were present.
After seven minutes Raiders had a scrum in their half of the pitch. The ball movedacross the back line until it reached Cleaves on the left wing. He chipped ahead, Jack Forrest was quickly through to take the ball nearer the Bury line eventually gathering the ball in his hands to dive over. Matt
McLean converted. Cleaves made another telling break before Harrison Sims split the defence and set off to the try line. He gave a well-timed pass inside to Matt McLean who romped in under the posts and converted his own try - 14-0.
After 18 minutes more good handling between backs and forwards resulted Connor Slevin scoring a try which McLean could not convert.
Bury’s defence was solid and prevented further tries for the home side. As Bury brought the ball out of defence a tackle by Jack Lee was deemed dangerous and he received a yellow card. Bury mounted a serious attack from a lineout in Raiders’ 22-metre area and after several phases they crossed the line to score their first points through Matt Bursey. Cameron Greenhall converted to make it 19-7.
Kemp Price and Ken Dowding made fine charges with ball in hand and when Bury gave away a penalty 35 metres from goal, McLean stepped upto make the lead 22-7 before Rhys Morgan and Tom Gwyther both had to go off injured. Raiders introduced Dan Sargent, Henry Birch and Will Hobson after the break and it was nip and tuck until Bury gained the ascendancy and forced their way to the line for Shaquille Meyers to score a try, Greenhall converting.
Raiders ahad scrum five metres out and after several phases Harrison Sims slipped the defence with a dummy and turn of speed to score. A McLean conversion made it 29-14.
Bury bounced back with a Mike Stanway try, converted by Greenhall for 29-21.
With ten minutes to go Dan Sargent received a yellow card and the game looked in the balance.
After a squabble Jack Forrest and the Bury full back were yellow carded,so, it was Bury who still had numerical advantage at 14 to 13 players.
But the final whistle went with Bury still trying to break out of their 22-metre area and the Raiders had completed a memorable day for the club.