Bury St Edmunds 47 - Dorking 44
By Jon Watts
Edmund was King of East Anglia from 855AD until he met a rather sticky end in 869AD - tied to a tree and, as he refused to renounce his Christian faith, shot through with arrows by some beastly lager swilling Danes. His saintly remains were eventually translated to Beodricesworth where an Abbey was built around his shrine and the site - much venerated by King Cnut (spelling correct) - became known as Bury St Edmunds.
Some 1130 years later Dorking RFC travelled to BSE in hope of recovering their momentum following a defeat to Worthing the previous week. A strong side by any standard - BSE are always one to take very seriously. Dorking had a few players moving up from the highly successful Screws but all were well-tested, up to the task and eager to prove their worth.
Opening 10 minutes was a blur of action with Dorking scoring 3 unanswered tries (by King,Osborne F and McRae) to lead 0-19. BSE replied with some very skilful work by their 10 to bring the first score 5 -19. Dorking replied with a fantastic penalty kick to the BSE 5 m line a catch and a rumble and its a bonus point try from Ellis 5-24. BSE were not out of this - not by a long chalk - the 10 again stepped two Dorking defenders to score under the posts 12 - 24. A loose Dorking kick pounced on for yet another BSE score under the posts 19 - 24. A scrum penalty against Dorking and a quick tap and go saw BSE score unconverted to even matters at 24 all. Frenetic stuff.
A penalty kick at goal from the very reliable Anscombe steadied the ship 24-27, followed by yet another fabulous penalty kick to the corner at 5m out from the BSE line. Another catch and drive for Ellis to go over again. Anscombe converted to allow us all to breathe at 24 - 34. Just as we thought we would, at last, keep the boot on the throat of BSE - and just before half time - Fin gets a Yellow
Second half under way and despite being down to 14 players Dorking pushed hard into BSE territory
and Anscombe kicked a penalty from 40 m out. Awesome. 24-37. BSE not out of this and a series of hard running moves and they’re back on Dorking’s 5 m line. A penalty to BSE and they take the scrum. It’s a converted score 31-37 and Bristow gets a yellow for his troubles. Down to 14 and BSE score yet again to take a 38 - 37 lead added to by a huge penalty shot at goal to extend the lead 41-37.
Dorking aren’t out of this and bounce back with a well worked first phase try for McRae down the left wing and a fine conversion for Anscombe to go back into the lead 41 - 44 at about the 40 minute mark.
BSE come back yet again a penalty kick to the corner and they don’t throw straight. Dorking scrum followed by Dorking penalty - there’s a bit of lip from BSE and they're marched back 10m followed by another 10m and yet another 10m due to continued back chat. Dorking not throwing straight this time. Scrum to BSE and they attack again - another penalty to BSE on Dorking’s 22 - shot at goal to equal the scores 44 - 44. We’re well into next week let alone injury time here.
Dorking back in possession from the KO and spill the ball midfield. You just know its going to be costly - deep down you just know - and so it came to pass as BSE move the ball back into Dorking’s 22 and obtain a penalty for offside and the rest is, as they say, history.
Not shot full of arrows whilst tied to a tree - but it felt like it.
Thoughts? For me we lost the game in the second quarter. Allowing in 3 really rather soft tries. Should have closed the game down with the sort of Will.Not.Yield defence that we've seen so many times from this great side this season. Hey ho. It’s onwards and upwards.
Lovely club BSE - and nice people. Really lively and passionate crowd. Cannot wait to give them a great big Big Field welcome next year!
DoR Armand Roux had the following comments:
“It was good game of rugby. We were really good in certain areas but we were punished by a good BSE side when we did make some errors.
We did however have all the opportunities to close the game off with double digit leads in various parts of the game, but simply did not get the rub of the green today. Couple of decision go our way and suddenly that game would have been very different.
We always review our performance, and not necessarily the result. We did some good things today including defending for long periods of that game and scoring some great tries from open play and lineouts. 2 bonus points on the road against a team that has found their rhythm this season. We will take that and focus on OA’s next.
Big thank you to the Dorking Faithfulll making the journey. As always, hugely appreciated.
Team: Birch, Ellis, Bristow, Howorth, King, Scholes, Dalton (c) Osborne F, Smith, Jackson, McRae, Anscombe, Mosley, Osborne C, Ramsden, Powell, Sheldrake, Grant, Mahoney, Wilson
Photo's by John Watkins
