Sutton & Epsom blown away by league leaders (From Surrey Comet)

Sutton & Epsom blown away by league leaders

10:53am Monday 30th January 2012 in Other Rugby By John Ashton

To make no bones about it Chichester thoroughly deserved to win this London Division One South match at Rugby Lane on Saturday but Sutton & Epsom should have been awarded the points they also deserved after a spirited performance against the runaway league leaders which ended in a 41-0 defeat.

Unfortunately, they had a perfectly good try disallowed early on when talented young flanker Joe Ridgeley went in next to the posts but by the time the referee got there a Chichester player had riggled under the ball and the referee disallowed the try as held up. Sutton realising that penalty goals were of little use elected at penalty time to go for the try but Chichester were much to street wise, whenever Sutton got within five metres of their line they were more than prepared to give away the penalty, bodies came over the top, they played the ball on the ground, came in from the side of the ruck and on two occasions within the five metres gave away five penalties in a row but did not even receive even a caution from the referee when most would have shown a yellow card or awarded a penalty try.

Thus the scoreline does not do justice to what was a performance full of character by Sutton.

For the opening half Sutton had the visitors rattled, they matched Chichester in every aspect of play and had the edge in the tight scrum.

It took the league leaders 20 minutes to get their opening score a penalty kicked by their very talented fly half Stuart Pearman.

The sides then battled hard with Sutton hammering at the Chichester line but being kept out by some pretty cynical defence, then following a break out from defence, Chichester were awarded a scrum 5 metres out, they managed to wheel it and their powerful No8 Moses Kasujja broke off and smashed over under the posts, Pearman converted. Sutton continued to take the game to the visitors but at half time the score remained 0-10.

Pearman kicked a beautifully struck drop goal very early in the 2nd half but Sutton bounced straight back and pinned Chichester on their goal line but the cynical defence unpunished by the referee kept them out despite being awarded 5 penalties in quick succession.

Having then poached the ball Chichester broke superbly out of defence reached the Sutton 22 where Pearman put in an inch perfect cross field kick collected by left winger Rich Adams who score in the left corner. Pearman converted. Chichester now began to take control and following a 5 metres scrum on the left Adams nipped through a gap to score wide on the left. Pearman again converted. They then scored two identical tries both from wheeled 5 metre scrums with No8 Kasujji forcing his way over both converted by the impeccable Pearman.

Despite the scoreline Sutton can take a lot from this performance which for a long period of the match had this very useful Chichester side rattled.

On Saturday Sutton travel to Sidcup kick off 2.15pm at their Sydney Road ground at Sidcup.