Hat trick for Vic in Positive Cam Performance

For several years now, games against Brighton at Watchetts have not produced a positive result for the black and ambers but at Watchetts today, in very wet conditions, this old rivalry was settled when the home side put together probably their best overall team performance of the season to completely outplay their seaside visitors scoring 8 outstanding tries in the process.

In atrocious conditions, at least for the spectators the first quarter, we saw both sides sizing each other up and although Cam clearly had the upper hand up front neither side were able to change the scoreboard, standing out brightly in the murky conditions until a great lineout drive on 19 mins saw Mac cross in the corner.
Cam then quickly returned to the visitors 22 with some great hands between forwards and backs and with a huge overlap the pass to release the backs was telegraphed and instead of moving to a 12-0 lead the Brighton winger made it to clubhouse corner and a converted try for a score of 5-7.

With Cam now dominating at scrum time a good pen by Smarty saw the opposition winger try to keep the ball in play by leaping high and tapping it back on the 22 but the result was a disaster for the visitors as it resulted in a 5m scrum. We then saw great control by the pack with #8 Mac cleverly controlling the ball to touch down as Cam crossed the line moving the score to 10-7 on the half hour.
Things got just that little bit better almost immediately when our Fiery Fireman showed real class as he changed the direction of play, chipped ahead and recovered the ball to touch down under the sticks with many of the visitors just looking on in amazement.
And the classy winger did it all again a few minutes later as his clever kick ahead took the visitors by surprise and he was able to collect the ball for another touchdown under the posts and with both efforts converted by Smarty the score had moved to 24-7 with the bonus point secured on 38 mins.
We then saw the seasiders mount a prolonged attack but absolutely fantastic defence by forwards and backs proved to be just too much for them and so the first half was closed out.

The second half saw Cam playing towards clubhouse corner and they were soon putting pressure on the visitors and again, from another great scrum, the ball was shipped wide and we saw Vic cross in clubhouse corner for his first of the afternoon with just 5 mins played and with another excellent kick by Smarty the score had moved to 31-7.
And then, almost straight from the restart we had the sight of Smarty intercepting on halfway and 'sprinting' into the corner having claimed a clever interception and after a few minutes break for him to recover!!, he then had the audacity to ping the ball over from the touchline which, in these awful conditions, was something else.
As happens on so many occasions when a team has a significant lead the foot comes off the gas and so on 55 mins the visitors efforts were eventually rewarded with another converted try but that proved to be the last time they would trouble the scorer while our supercharged fullback Vic, clearly enjoying the freedom that the tiring opposition afforded him crossed for another couple of fabulous scores in the final quarter to complete an excellent display by the black and ambers, a result which, with the other results sees them move into second place just 1 point behind leaders Havant.

So on a filthy day with rotten weather conditions we witnessed an excellent performance with forwards and backs playing some classy rugby whilst showing a real hard edge when it came to D particularly in the period just before the break which made a big statement.
The backs, despite the conditions, looked much sharper than in recent games and their physicality both in attack and defence was much improved.
So next week we have another quiet weekend, possibly because of a game being played on the continent?? and this is followed by another block of 3 games – away v Bournemouth, and then home against Horsham and H&F.

And Finally – well the C&Ws definitely got a result on Friday at a very wet and windy Falcons (courtesy of Storm Babet) where they managed to hold on to their slender lead in atrocious conditions making it 2 from 2 in the Prem and 7 from 7 if you include the Prem Cup – so a satisfying weekend for Skivs I would suggest with still 6 more WC players yet to return.

Pic by Dinger shows George on one of his incursions!!