12 January
2008
Portsmouth Vets 36 Worthing iv 7
by Simon Newsham
Tries Bailey 2 (dropped 2) Cameron 1 Ladd 1 Hodges 1 Bullard 1
Cons Reilly 3
Another victory at home for the vets, a slightly changed side with a
special guest appearance from Steve Cameron, missing for over a decade
with injury he took the right wing slot and youngster Olly Vinall
made his debut in the second row. One other new boy having only his second
run out for the veterans was prop forward Dave Thomas who lined up with
Bungle and Gentleman Geoff in the back row.
The home side started well with a try after only five minutes, a
Pompey line-out on the 22 was caught and driven by the pack,
Bungle slipped out of the rolling maul and dropped over the
line to score on the right although the conversion attempt fell
short. Eight minutes later and a set-piece yielded another try, a Worthing
scrum went against the head, taken by Matt Lane, Bungle picked up and Mike
Caspall broke blind to set up an easy try for Cameron on the right touchline,
Leon kicked this one and Pompey eased into a 12-0 lead.
It was beginning to look like one way traffic, Pompey were piling into the
visitors but the killer touch was missing, once again on the end of a
cheeky blind break by Caspall was Steve Cameron he stepped past two tackles and
drew the full back, with only the pass to go into Bungles hands for a
certain try, Cameron chose to throw the ball to the floor, a Worthing
boot then launched the ball back into the Portsmouth half, chased by
three attackers but the dependable Dave Ladd fell on the ball
and cleared away the danger. Poor handling by Pompey gave their
visitors a series of scrums which Worthing could not do anything with, in fact
I counted five taken against the head by
With the clock ticking towards half-time and no further scoring Pompey found
themselves with a scrum five metres from goal after another promising move
that lacked finish, Pompey were held up and awarded the scrum. The
pack surged forward and Bungle dropped on the ball for his second try of
the game converted by Reilly, Half-Time 19-0.
The second half began with one change to the Pompey line up, Kieran Godkin (who
after arriving late had been supplementing Gosports meagre second xv on
the adjacent pitch) came on and a tactical swap saw Dave Thomas move into the
front row instead of Hindle who had been outstanding. Worthing started the
second half with spirit but the Pompey forwards soon put paid to that and
normal service resumed quickly with a fine try. Campbell and Cameron
linked up to gain plenty of ground but ran into some tackles, the recycled
ball found Dave Ladd on the left of the posts to score a try which
converted by Reilly put Portsmouth into a 26-0 lead.
Geoff Bullard continued to have a great game and good work from him on the
charge got the hosts within five of the Worthing goal-line, in
his haste to get on the scoresheet Jonah Jones crashed over the line but
dropped the ball as he did so. Eagle-eyed ref Geoff Jones denied his Welsh
compatriot a try. Portsmouth should have been scoring at will with all the
possession they were enjoying but were not able to finish off a succession of
moves, one of which involved 6 phases of play before Caspall threw the
ball open when the blind-side had served him so well all afternoon, Len
took the pass and then threw it to his left where a Worthing back hoofed
it to safety.
At this point Haggis left the field with a neck problem and the Pompey scrum
was re-jigged, Gavin Hindle returned to the game. Worthing then chose to kick
at every opportunity,
This seemed to spark the hosts back into life and from a scrum on their own
twenty-two Caspall fed to Reilly who popped to Doogie Campbell on the
crash, Dougie passed to Hodges who threw it wide to Cameron who then
passed it to full-back Dave Ladd, Cameron got it back and passed the ball
to both spectators, then back to Hodges who gave it back to
Cameron who tried to pass it to the ref before popping it to Bungle
deep inside the Worthing twenty-two, you couldn't catch your breath on the
touchline and neither it seemed could Cameron who then baled out of this
attack, Kieran took it on with Geoff Bullard and Olly Vinall in close
support, it was left to Caspall to pop the ball up for Nigel Hodges to score
the try which the heavily intricate and slightly disjointed move so richly
deserved, 31-7 now and the extra two points were missed by Leon.
In the final minutes my man of the match Geoff Bullard crossed the line
after snaffling up a Worthing line-out to score the final try of the game,
even in the moments after the final whistle he approached your reporter to
tell me just how far out he was when he caught the ball and went on his
dramatic dash for the line, if he'd bought me a pint I'd have stretched the
truth to three metres.
Last weeks try hero Mark Borrowdale was not on the scoresheet today but
had a couple of fine runs, other notable performers were Matt Lane
who took many a scrum against the head, and Olly who was very impressive
in the second row. I'm in
Unfortunately I have to finish on a sad note, we have learned
that Geoff Cavell the gentle giant is in hospital and is
extremely poorly, we extend to him and his family all
our best wishes and would like them to know that we are all thinking of
them at this time.
Simon Newsham