Beckenham 11 - Chichester 26

Chichester went on their first significant away journey to Beckenham on Saturday with only previous away matches at close to home Haywards Heath and Havant. Chi travelled without several experienced players with Richard Adams stepping in as skipper in the absence of Ben Polhill.
As expected the match was a tough bruising encounter and the blues had to show some real grit and determination to come away with the bonus point victory.
With good conditions under foot and bright sunshine Chi were out of the blocks quickly and had carved open the yellow defence with swift hands releasing skipper for the day Rich Adams out wide .; Adams scorched through rounding to give himself the easy conversion -7-0.
Beckenham came back hard and really took the game to the blues; in what was to prove a tough afternoon with a multitude of decisions going against them every time the away side created some go forward ball they were pegged back by penalties against. On ten minutes the blues became frustrated by the constant infringements at the ruck and big prop Veltom took the law into his own hands – as is always the way the reactor is the one pinged with 10 mins in the bin.
Beckenham slotted a penalty soon after 7-3; however Chi were looking very dangerous ball in hand with the forwards creating great lineout ball with Goldie and Davies edging the lineout battle.
With 30 gone of the half Adams once again showed his class to ghost through the smallest of gaps to step past the last defender 14-3. By this time Beckenham had also had a man sent to the bin. The match was marred by a series of no armed tackles one of which led to the fresh on Bond receiving a nasty blow to the head both he and his tackler left the field to play no further part. The Blues looked like they might really pull away but a combination of dogged defence and poor decisions prevented the blues making any further score. Becks ended the half captilising on another penalty to score to see the half finish 14-8
The weather had closed mid way through the first half with squally rain making handling tricky. The game started to become scrappy with Becks contesting hard at the break down; no real pattern of play developed, on the odd occasion that Becks did get some ball strong defence by Bentall and some excellent cover defence from Hutchinson shut down the threat.
Golds from 15 was having a solid performance and kept taking the ball back hard and on a couple of occasions he generated 30 metre line breaks forwards and backs combined well but the last pass too often went to ground.
Chi upped the tempo and eventually an excellent forward surge saw Goldie emerge with the ball to crash over close to the line 19-6. Yet again a series of baffling penalties killed any pressure the blues could build with Bentall binned for blocking from a tap penalty. Beckenham reacted quickly to another penalty to for the first time find some weakness in the blue defence moving ball out wide to score a well worked try 19-11. With 20 to go Chi dug deep, pack leader Moses Kasujja rallied his troops with a series of powerful drives creating havoc in the yellow defence and with fifteen to go another powerful surge put Bentall into space; showing all his power and deceptive pace he smashed past three defenders to score the bonus point try with Adams striking the ball superbly to take the extras – 26-11.
In the last Qtr the Blues really looked to step on the gas ; with Adams again in the action with a great break and the last man to beat the move was called back as his try opening pass was ruled out for a forward pass – the blue supporters looked on stunned with another completely baffling decision. With five to go and Billy Toone burst clear of the defence he jinked his away to five metres from the line with another head high no arm challenge left him dazed on the floor the resulting yellow for foul language rather than the tackle seemed odd ; but there you had it.
Director of Rugby Paul Colley
`Today was a big challenge we had a pretty young team out with no-one near 30 and most players in their early 20s including two teenagers so in overall terms we were very pleased with the result. ; the performance wasn’t our best but Beckenham laid down a physical challenge and for our guys to dig in and get the bonus point was a significant achievement`
MOM Moses Kasujja

Team Woods Gray Veltom Davies Cavozzi Wright Goldie Kasujja Toone Adams- capt Robson Bentall Renwick Hutchinson Golds ; Gingell Sitch Bond

Next week the Blues take on Sidcup currently 4th in the league at Home – in a very tight early leader board Chichester now sit top of London 1 South ; but every game is massive please come along and support