Away win for 2nds

The Hurries put in an excellent performance on the road Saturday when they travelled to newly promoted Basingstoke. The home side fielded a strong athletic side that are well worthy of their place in the league.

The game started slowly for the visitors as Basingstoke pressured the Sandown line for the first fifteen minutes, Sandown broke well always having the edge when securing good ball, from one Sandown attack Basingstoke infringed and Lawrence Edmonston kicked to put the Hurries in to a three point lead.

Basingstoke responded with their own penalty and then from a line out close in they crashed over for an unconverted score. This spurred the Hurries on and from a set play at a scrum number eight and BJ MEATS man-of-the-match Nick Heelan went blind and fed Damian Marriot who drew the covering defence superbly to feed the returning Josh Wetherick who made no mistake going in under the posts, Edmonston converted.

Then from their own half Michael Cooper fed Tom Monks who went the length of the field to score a superb individual try, Edmonston again converted. Half time 17-8 to the visitors.

The second half was a cagey affair and Basingstoke had the majority of the play but they couldn’t break through the solid Hurries defence especially from the impressive youngsters Shaun Williams, Michael Barrett and Chris Perfect.

As well as solid defence the impressive WIGHTLINK man-of-the-match Arthur Buxton and centre Michael Cooper also offered a threat going forward and for the last twenty minutes Edmonston and Cooper pinned Basingstoke back in their own half with intelligent kicking from hand to see out an unusual 0-0 for the half, this saw the Hurries seal a good away win leaving them third in their league with the two leaders to come over the next few weeks.

TEAM: McLaughlin, S Williams, Steele, S Perfect, C Perfect, Barrett, Buxton, Heelan, Marriott, Edmonston, Johnson, Cooper, Monks, Wetherick, Linnington, Borrer, M Keyworth, Tyas, Barlow, S Kullick.

Try: Wetherick, Monks
Conv: Edmonston (2)
Pen: Edmonston