Chaotic Cam Claim a Max

So Cam entered this weekend knowing that anything less than 5 points would hand 2nd place to Havant but also knowing that they were still short of a number of regulars with a crunch game at The Wombles next week.
The afternoon saw the club remember a Camberley stalwart Harry Gibson – who captained the side which won the Surrey Cup in the 70s and it was good to see his wife and his son, former club skipper Chris, in attendance.

Also I had the honour of presenting a club cap to Hughsey in recognition of his 200th game for the club – an amazing achievement in this modern era.
In the event we saw a game without a huge amount of structure and with lots of errors resulting in 12 tries being scored with the visitors claiming their lbp with the last action of the game.

Cam, playing away from the clubhouse got off to a pretty poor start and after 7 mins found themselves 7 points down when poor defence saw the visitors cross for a converted try.
Cam then had some possession and after a driving maul from a 5m lineout was adjudged to have been held up the pressure was maintained and on 14 mins Liam knocked over a pen to get the black and ambers on the board. Cam then started to return to their processes a little more but the visitors were so quickly up in defence that they had little return for their efforts and things got worse when the visitors intercepted a pretty flat pass to double their points to 14 on 25 mins.
This time the Cam response was quick and clinical as they won back their restart and were awarded a penalty they opted for the 5m lineout and this time the visitors were unable to halt the drive with Harry touching down and with a superb conversion from touch by Liam the score moved to 10-14.
And it seemed that Cam had upped their game as more pressure in the visitors 22 saw them held up again over the visitors line but a penalty soon after saw Liam make it a 1 point game with another well struck pen.
However with the clock moving into overtime Cam made a complete hash of the visitors restart and their flanker was allowed the freedom of Watchetts to run through and touch down for a converted try and despite yet another lineout drive from Cam they were unable to break down the visitors defence before the official called an end to the half.

The second period proved, at least initially, to be much more comfortable for the Watchetts faithful as, following a scrum penalty on halfway we saw Cam start to go through the phases before a neat chip by Liam saw our Fiery Fireman dot down for an unconverted try and a score of 18-19 with just 3 mins played and a more focussed Cam soon found themselves back in the red zone and when the driving maul was held up the ball was moved out with Big Dom eventually claiming the try and with Liam adding the extras the score had moved to 25-19 with just 48 mins played and things got even worse for the visitors when from the restart, we saw prop Harry have a little dash before feeding our Fireman who, with all lights flashing, again took the ball deep into the visitors 22 before setting up flanker Hamish for an outstanding team try and a score of 32 -19 with just 50 mins played.

However the visitors were not content to roll over and with the Cam injury count starting to look a tad high the visitors soon opened their account for the second half with an unconverted try on 55 mins.

However the response from the black and ambers was almost immediate as, from the restart, yet another pen saw them with another 5m lineout and although the initial drive was held up eventually we saw Jos cross for a converted try moving the score to 39-24 halfway through the second half.

To be fair to the visitors they never backed off and with Cam winning a dubious yellow, play became very chaotic from both sides with tackles missed and passes dropped and despite Liam extending the lead to 42-24 with 10 mins left we saw former Tigers wing Tom Varndell score a quality try to make things more interesting and the visitors made things even tighter as with just a few mins left they closed the gap to 6 points with another converted try and although Vic, who had taken over kicking from the injured Liam pushed the score to 45-36 in time added on another bout of poor defence by the black and ambers saw the visitors claim their well deserved losing bonus point with the last action of the game.

So, in simple terms Cam claimed their 5 points, however, allowing the opposition so many tries coupled with a significant injury list, will ensure that the coaches will be earning their corn this week.

Overall not one of the black and ambers performances this season with far too many poor decisions and missed tackles and it is clear that with many of the boys having played between 15 and 20 games without much of a break, they are simply tired and the hope will be that they will be able to lift themselves one more time next week when they will aim to complete the double over The Wombles and also claim the Surrey Cup.

And Finally no game for the C&Ws this Saturday but great to see our neighbours down the A38 do a number on The Saints - well at least Brizzle was happy!!
Pic by Dinger shows George touching down