Four Try Jos Just Too hot for S&E

On a beautiful sunny Saturday Camberley hosted 'local' rivals Sutton and Epsom at a wonderfully green Watchetts Park, so different from the brown wastelands of a couple of weeks ago and now so much better than my own lawns!!
Cam were also looking for some new green shoots following a stuttering win against Wimbledon and last weeks lack lustre defeat at Havant.
With Our President hosting the Presidents Lunch the game started with a minutes silence to allow us all time to reflect on The Queen's passing before Cam got proceedings going kicking off towards the clubhouse and they were immediately on the attack when the visitors knocked on the kick 15m from their line and a solid scrum plus a training field move with a missed pass and full back Vic joining the line we saw our Flying Fijian Jos stroll over to dot down with less than 2 mins on the clock and with Liam adding the extras the black and ambers were up and running.
The S&E restart again saw Cam adopt a very aggressive approach and great movement by Vic, Jos and Ally took play deep into the visitors half with tight head Bazza making another of his bullocking runs and a couple of penalties later a quick tap and go by Liam saw the Flying Fijian over the whitewash without a hand laid on him for his second of the afternoon and a 14-0 lead with just 10 mins played.
At this stage Cam were clearly gaining the upper hand and scrumtime was becoming very difficult for the visitors with #9 Ally making the most of his dominant pack and soon Cam were pushing hard for their next score but the first attempt was adjudged to have been held up resulting in a drop out to the visitors from under their posts.
We then saw some excellent rugby when, the long drop out was fielded on half way, it was quickly moved through several pairs of hands until it reached our Flying Fijian on the visitors 10m line and he simply scythed through the S&E defence brushing off tackles like he would brush off an annoying fly to dot down and with Liam adding the extras he had scored 3 tries in less than 30 mins.
Unfortunately we then saw what over the years has become to be known as The Camberley Switch Off which almost always occurs when the team has established a reasonable lead early doors and this can be identified by any or all of the following, players falling off tackles, players ignoring the basic systems, players becoming isolated due to lack of support in fact a complete drop in standards, physicality and commitment and towards the end of the half the visitors managed to put a few phases together and on 30 mins they narrowed the gap with a converted try following a good lineout drive.

For the final 10 minutes of the first half we saw lots of endeavour from the black and ambers with their scrum now dominant but despite getting close the score remained 21-7 at the break.

The second half started very positively when, from another good scrum we saw Jos join the line from the blindside wing before feeding fullback Vic,who was having a really productive day, before he and Gabe exchanged passes with the young fullback crossing in the corner and with and excellent touchline conversion the score had moved to 28-7 with just 45 mins played.
However, rather than Cam putting the hammer down they again clearly switched off and, to their credit the visitors took full advantage of some very poor decisions and soft tackling to get themselves into at least losing bonus point territory by claiming 2 good converted tries so we entered the last 15 mins with the score 28- 21 and the momentum seemingly with the visitors until several penalties conceded by the visitors saw Liam nudging the black and ambers towards the S&E line and the line out drive saw Thunderman emerge from the melee to claim the score and another great conversion by Liam moved the score to 35-21 with less than 10 mins on the clock.

Cam again managed the restart well and were soon putting the S&E line under extreme pressure and when they won a penalty in the visitors 22 this time Liam opted for the 3 points to make the idea losing bonus point a a tad more difficult for S&E.
And the black and ambers then chose to close out the game with some more quality rugby with Hughsey and Dom carrying the ball back from the restart to deep in the visitors 22 and from the resulting ruck the ball was played quickly to the backs and a huge miss pass saw Jos out wide trot in for his fourth of the game and a final score of 43-21.

So overall this was an excellent performance with the Cam scrum clearly dominant when it was required, the lineout functioning well and the attack looking threatening for most of the game, however I'm sure the coaching team will have more than a few words to say about those periods of the game when concentration, discipline and physicality dropped off quite alarmingly and they will know that if this is allowed to happen against other teams at this level they will be punished.

Today we saw a great performance by the pack both in the tight and loose with Murph and Thunderman showing the depth of quality in our squad by gaining the upper hand at scrumtime. Sam, Dom and the backrow also had big games and really were the bedrock of this win while new boy Ally at #9 was outstanding until he had to be replace due to injury on 60 mins.
With a completely new centre partnership of Alex Young and coach Laids, both making their Cam debuts, the backline functioned well and provided wingers Gabe and Jos with plenty of good ball while young Vic at fullback was outstanding, always looking for work, full of pace, in fact, an exciting rugby player.
Next week we have another tough game away at local rivals Bracknell who are also P3 and W2 – ko 15.00

Pic by Dinger shows Big Dom on the charge