Black & Ambers win leaves room for improvement
CAMBERLEY kept pace with league leaders Havant thanks to a 38-31 win at Horsham in Regional One South Central on Saturday, but it was far from a convincing performance.
The hosts benefited from the breeze for the first 40 minutes, but far too many mistakes reduced the fluency of proceedings.
The first score of the game did not come until almost the end of the first quarter when good hands and aggressive running by George Owen took play deep into the red zone, and a chip over the defensive line was collected at the second attempt to see Matt Smart cross for the opening score.
Camberley soon moved back into the Horsham half from the restart and great hands saw Nick Barry set Owen off again, and this time he was just too good for the defence and touched down in the corner.
A fabulous conversion from touch by Smart saw the score move to 12-0 after 22 minutes.
The home side, who benefit from a 3G surface, were scrapping for everything and poor Camberley defence in the midfield saw them onto the scoreboard after 30 minutes; 12-7.
The second half saw Camberley on the offensive immediately and with less than two minutes played scrum-half Max McCarthy spotted a gap at the breakdown on halfway and his speed and nifty footwork saw him outpace the home defence to dot down under the posts; 19-7.
But the visitors could not build on that try and let Horsham back in to score two converted tries of their own, moving into a two-point lead. At this point the Black & Ambers went up a gear and, after several penalties, managed a tremendous lineout drive from 15 metres with Dom Sammut claiming the score on 67 minutes, and the try bonus point.
And the story was repeated straight from the restart when firstly Camberley won a penalty for Sammut being taken out in the air and some chat from the home side cost them a further 10 metres, with Smart adding salt to the wound by sticking the penalty on halfway into touch on the Horsham five-metre line.
There was an inevitability about the next stages when several darts for the line eventually saw Camberley replacement Greg Franzel burrow his way over to claim the score after a good series of plays; 31-21 on 70 minutes.
Again to their credit, and aided by more sloppy defence, Horsham claimed another converted try for a try bonus point on 75 minutes.
As is often the case, the lion was stirred again and, from the restart, Camberley moved into the Horsham 22.
Several drives saw the direction of play switched cleverly and tighthead Nick Barry charged over from 20m, making the score 38-28 while playing time added on.
However, Camberley clearly again switched off as they were penalised almost immediately and Horsham accepted the gift of three points and, with it, a losing bonus point with the final kick of the day.
Camberley, who sit second in the table, are next in action on Saturday March 16 when they travel to Hammersmith & Fulham.