Courageous Comeback sees Cam Conquer Cobham

We often hear coaches talk about 'a game of two halves' and think this is a just a cliché but this game at Cobham certainly fell into that category as Cam recovered from being 23-5 down at 45 mins to finally win 30-39 to claim 5 points and so maintain their drive for a promotion slot.
In a game full of endeavour, we saw both sides fighting for the full 80 to claim victory, but in the end, when the black and ambers, in the second half, started to concentrate and manage the game, they were just too strong for the home side and eventually grabbed a 5 point max from the jaws of defeat
Playing on the 3G pitch we saw a Camberley first when the Wright Bros took advantage of the latest ruling from World Rugby as they appeared in flashy tights – however what some of our players of yesteryear would have said about this sartorial statement is probably unprintable!!
The first half saw Cam completely off the pace, lacking in concentration, in fact looking like a bunch of guys who had just met up for the first time and if you add the fact that they also suffered some interesting decisions by the official particularly at scrum time plus his gift of a couple of yellow cards in the dying stages of the half Cam were down and almost out at the break.
The first quarter saw Cam unable to string phases together and with them being beaten up at scrum time, one of the side's main planks had disappeared and Cobham found themselves 6 points to the good courtesy of 2 long range pens.
However on 25 mins the black and ambers got onto the scoreboard when a good pen by Harry to within 15m of the home side's try line saw a good drive followed by several phases eventually moving wide and we saw Harry set Ash up for the first try of the afternoon.
This improvement however only proved temporary as Cam then lost 2 players to the bin in quick succession and while down to 13 Cobham took full advantage and scored 2 tries from short range, one of which was converted giving a half time score of 18-5.

And things got worse when the 13 men conceded another try due to more sloppy play on 43 mins making the score 23-5.

Them, almost miraculously Cam got their act, and their heads together and from the restart they applied pressure close to the Cobham line and eventually our Ozzie Mole burrowed over for the score and a very good kick by H from wide out made the score 23-12 on 47 mins.
In addition, during the build up to the try a home player won a yellow and Cam made the most of their numerical superiority when a great exit from the restart saw Brizzle and Ash take play back into the Cobham 22 and a few phases later we saw The Warrior force his way over and with H again adding the extras we suddenly had a 4 point game.
By now the official had also sorted the issues at the scrum and we saw the home pack being repeatedly penalised as they struggled to withstand the pressure from the black and ambers eight and from one of these scrums on halfway Cam launched another attack deep into the Cobham 22 with Murph making an impressive break before the ball was swung wide and it was Oyoni who dotted down and with H again doing the honours Cam had for the first time in the afternoon moved into the lead 23-26 and when H added 3 more from almost halfway following another destructive scrum the score had moved to 23-29 on 61 mins.
To their credit Cobham did not roll over and now back to 15v15 they were soon in the Cam 22 and a good driving maul saw them cross for a converted try to retake the lead 30-29 with 15 mins left on the clock.
But the home side's lead proved to be just temporary when another powerful scrum saw Hughsey make good metres before feeding TommyA and finally H who crossed for the 5th try and when he converted the score had moved to 30-36.
Again the restart was handled well by Cam and they had moved play just into the Cobham half where they were awarded yet another scrum time pen 15m from touch and midway between the Cobham 10m and halfway and young H calmly called for the tee and proceeded to slot the ball through the uprights for the final score to deny the hosts a lbp.

This was clearly a rare mix of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly all in 80 mins and there will plenty of topics for Risey, Mal and the other coaches to ponder in the coming days but, as the second half proved, there is very little wrong with the way the team plays when they decide to turn it on and probably the biggest take from this game was that the boys really showed their quality and self belief when they were 18 points down against a very physical and motivated side who kept going for the full 80.
It was also very apparent that when the official did sort out the front row at scrumtime the quality of the Cam pack shone through and to such an extent several scores in the second half came as a direct result of penalties awarded as they shunted the Cobham eight back at a rate of knots.

So next week the 1s are away at London Irish Wild Geese and no doubt the aim will be for an 80 min performance if only to maintain normal heart function among the supporters.

And Finally – no action at Castle Grim this week but still plenty of rejoicing amongst the faithful with another defeat for the team down the A46.

Pic by Dinger shows Oyoni scoring out wide supported by Wright The Younger