Bury buried: Worthing Raiders rack up another National 2 East victory

After a week without a game Raiders returned to action with their fourth away match in six outings. The trip to Suffolk is one of their longest in the newly formed National League 2 East.

Unavailability continues to provide plenty of discussion in selection. This week’s squad had six changes of personnel and one positional change in the starting line up. Curtis Barnes returned after missing one match, Rob Ure, Tom Hatch and Cam Dobinson returned from injury, the latter playing his first game of the season. Tom Derrick and Alex Davies were making their debuts for Raiders.

Raiders won the toss and elected to play against the strong breeze in the first half. Bury sent the ball deep into the visitors’ territory from the kick off, knowing it would be difficult to make much ground kicking back into the wind.

The first fifteen minutes were all played in the Raiders’ half. The home side doing all the attacking and the visitors all the defending. Bury hit the post with a penalty attempt and several times the pressure they exerted looked as though it would be rewarded with a try. However, the winner in this early part of the game was definitely the Raiders’ defence which repeatedly rebuffed all attempts to cross their try line by the home side.

The pressure was eventually released when Raiders broke out of defence with a powerful run from Will Hoare. Once in the Bury half of the field the visitors were then able to play some attacking rugby of their own.

Up to this point the visitors’ scrum had been under great pressure but at the twenty-minute mark they successfully won good possession on their own put in and the ball was moved across the back line towards the left wing. Once in the hands of Curtis Barnes he streaked away avoiding all attempts to bring him down and Raiders had the first try of the afternoon. Harrison Sims added the extras, 0-7.

Raiders continued to have a good patch of possession and territory. Curtis Barnes had another great run out of defence after fielding a kick, this set up a good attacking position but Bury defended well and were soon back on the offensive.

With thirty minutes played the home side scored their first points of the afternoon with a converted try to bring the scores level, 7-7.

Both sides looked dangerous with ball in hand and defences had to be at their best to avoid conceding points.

With about five minutes to go in the half Bury were penalised and Fergus Guiry kicked to touch deep inside their twenty-two. From the lineout the visitors set up a very, effective drive which eventually crossed the goal line and Elliott Luke touched down to score the try. Harrison Sims was again on target with the conversion and Raiders retook the lead, 7-14.

After soaking up all the early pressure this was an excellent outcome for the visitors as they went into the half time break.

Half time score: Bury St Edmunds 7 Worthing Raiders 14

With the strong breeze now on their backs Raiders kicked off to set the game in motion after half time.

Within a minute a penalty was awarded to the visitors in centre field and a couple of metres inside the Bury half.

Skipper Liam Perkins elected for a shot at the posts and Harrison Sims stepped up to take the kick. The ball was struck well and flew straight but landed on the crossbar. The rebound was caught in front of the posts by a defender who was engulfed by the Raiders follow-up players. From this situation the ball was taken over the goal line by the visitors but they could not touch it down and a goal line drop out relieved the pressure for the home side.

With five minutes of the half played fresh legs were introduced by the coaches. Alex Davies and Harry Nelson replaced Fergus Guiry and Rob Ure respectively. Very soon after Jackson Clark joined the front row and Fraser Bruce went to the bench only to return a couple of minutes later when Dan Sargent came off with a minor injury.

The early part of the half saw plenty of good attacking play from Raiders. When kicking for position the chase invariably put the Bury receivers under plenty of pressure. When running with the ball the backs looked likely to break the defence at any time.

With just over ten minutes played the backs moved the ball towards the right wing and as the space seemed to have closed down and the touch line came ever closer a clever little grubber kick put the ball behind the defensive line and Tom Bowen was quickly through to snap up the ball and score in the corner. Harrison Sims was unable to convert but a more comfortable lead of 7-19 was established.

Tom Hatch replaced Elliott Luke in the front row and Cam Dobinson returned after a long injury spell, to replace Iago Davies at scrum half.

Raiders maintained a high tempo and were able to keep the home side pinned inside their own twenty-two for lengthy periods. The visitors looked comfortable at this stage and the early scrum advantage that the home side had enjoyed was no longer in evidence.

With just over a quarter of the game left Harry Nelson made a great break from deep in his own half and was only stopped when he got to within twenty metres of the Bury goal line. When it looked like quick ruck ball was about to emerge for Raiders the referee stopped the game. It took a moment for everyone to realise what had happened. In tackling Harry Nelson, the defender had pulled his shirt completely off his back and the ball as it came out of the ruck was wrapped up inside the shirt. The outcome was a scrum to Raiders. From the scrum the ball moved to the right and Fergus Guiry was held up over the line. Almost but not quite the bonus point try.

Raiders continued to create excellent attacking situations but couldn’t quite break the Bury defence. Another break by Curtis Barnes saw him brought down just short of the line, he managed to make the extra metre forward to touch down but the referee deemed it to be a double movement.

With the minutes ticking away Bury tried everything to break free and get the try that would level the score but even in broken play the Raiders defence was impenetrable.

With the final play in motion Bury were penalised thirty metres from their goal line. Raiders took the pragmatic view that a four-point win was better than the temptation to get the five-point win and so Harrison Sims took the shot at the posts and successfully took the score to 14-22 as the referee brought the game to its conclusion.

Full time score: Bury St Edmunds 14 Worthing Raiders 22

This had been an excellent, open game of rugby with both sides playing their part in entertaining the crowd. Although the team created many scoring chances with exciting rugby this win was built on the outstanding defence they put up in the first quarter of the match. Another good win on the road.

Thanks as always to our supporters who made the long journey, I’m sure they travelled home a happy bunch.

Referee: Phillip Russell

Scorers: Tries: Barnes, Luke, Bowen. Cons: Sims x 2. Pen: Sims

Team: Fraser Bruce 2. Elliott Luke 3. Dan Sargent 4. Jack Lake 5. Will Hoare 6. Liam Perkins – Captain 7. Rob Ure 8. Frank Taggart 9. Iago Davies 10. Fergus Guiry 11. Tom Derrick 12. Harrison Sims 13. Jack Forrest 14. Tom Bowen 15. Curtis Barnes. Bench: 16. Tom Hatch 17. Jackson Clark 20. Harry Nelson 21. Cam Dobinson 22. Alex Davies