Seaside Robbery as Cam claim another Max

Today's visit to Brighton revived memories of the game between the two sides at Watchetts on 13th April 2019 when Cam just needed a draw to see them into the playoffs. In the event The Blues shaded the contest 26-24 scoring 14 points in time added on and subsequently won their playoff to move up to Level 5. So despite being second best for much of the game today I suspect that Cam coming away with 5 points left the Brighton supporters with a similar taste as that experienced by the Watchetts faithful 3 ½ years ago.
In the event a very physical and motivated Brighton side must consider themselves a tad unlucky to only claim a single point for their endeavours today when they had held the upper hand for most of the 80 mins.

With Cam kicking off into quite a stiff breeze the seasiders soon moved play into the Cam 22 and with just 5 mins on the clock they slotted a simple pen.
Now, as in previous games this season Cam came back almost immediately and when Liam turned down a pen which was straight in front of the posts on the Brighton 22, opting instead for the driving lineout, we saw a great catch by Dom followed by a great drive with the massive second row reaching out to dot the ball down and with an excellent conversion by Liam from the touchline the score had moved to 3-7 with barely 8 mins played.
We then had a period with both sides trying to establish control and it was the home side to score next with a second pen on 16 mins.
Another great hanging restart by Liam soon won the black and ambers a pen and again the decision was to go for the 5m driving maul and it was Hughsey this time who claimed the touch down with the extras again being added by Liam from the touchline with just 20 mins on the clock.

For black and amber supporters things just got a whole lot worse for the remainder of the half as poor discipline and tackling saw the home side claim 2 rather soft tries and a pen taking the score to 19-14 when the ref blew for half time.

The second half started with Cam successfully repelling a series of fierce attacks as they held up the Brighton pack over the try line and despite the scrappy nature of things we saw the Fireman execute a perfect 50/22 to establish a good attacking position but Cam were unable to take advantage.
However with 25 mins played we saw another Cam penalty push play into the Brighton red zone and this time perfect execution of the lineout drive saw debutant openside Hamish cross for an excellent try and with Liam again adding the extras Cam had crept into the lead 19-21.

This only served to motivate the home side yet again as, from the defensive kick from the restart, the Brighton fullback sliced through Cam's paper thin defence to score an outstanding try and even though the conversion was missed the score was now 24-21.
The final 10 mins or so saw Cam suddenly move up a gear or so as they realised that the game was slipping away from them while the home side put their bodies on the line big time in an attempt to claim the points. In the end, after a couple of unsuccessful sorties into the Brighton 22 the third visit proved to be fruitful as another great lineout take and drive saw Big Dom claim his second of the afternoon and the tbp and although Liam couldn't add the extras this proved to be the final score of the afternoon as the black and ambers ended proceedings with a tremendous scrum which drove the home side back 5-10 yards at pace just to show what they are capable of.

So definitely the better team on the day came second but in the end 5 points when you are not playing well can be considered a good result and not to be sneezed at and also we saw some very good debuts from openside flanker Hamish who, once he had come to terms with the pace of things, had a very good outing and I look forward to his development over the coming weeks while young loose head Finn had 40 mins and really looked the part (holding Clarkey up!!) both lads looking really good acquisitions in key roles.

However the coaches will really need to alter the mindset of the players going forward if we are to see the side challenging for promotion next March.

Today the 2s joined the 1s at Brighton and comfortably won their early kick off game v Brighton 2s 29-10 – a great result and of course allowed us all the 'pleasure' of TJ and his mates and their running commentary for a good part of the game!!!

And finally – Well the C&Ws good run continues with another 'Close Encounter' coming out winners 21-22 at Oirish, moving them up to 3rd in the Prem.

Pic, by Dinger shows Hamish claiming his try to the delight of his team mates