RAIDERS STAY ON TOP

THE Ladies suffered a 57-point thrashing on their Championship 2 SW debut, but there were big pluses for the men on Saturday with a pair of wins for the Raiders and the Vikings.
While the Vikings were winning 39-14 away at St Francis to start their Sussex League 2 campaign on a positive note, the patched up Raiders were digging deep to collect their own bonus post win, courtesy of a 25-17 home win against Sutton & Epsom.
It was enough to keep them top of the fledgling table.

Raiders, who had to make do without fly half Owen Thomas and gave a surprise start in the No. 10 shirt to Sam Whitehead, crossed the whitewash four times, Tom Ceillam grabbing the first, Dan Hill the second and then two from highly impressive newcomer, Douglas Horrocks.
‘It was always going to be close - look we didn’t have a back line at all - we had to patch up the side, said coach Jordan Reynolds.
Explaining the decision to leave out Thomas with a right left calf, the coach said he was listening to his medical staff and thinking longer term.
‘We have to think long term.
‘We could probably have played Owen, but if he pulled up he could have been out for another four or five weeks.
‘I’ve got from the physios that if we keep him off today we will have him for sure next week.’

Raiders’ patched up backline took quite a while to work things out and by then the side were behind, with Jordan Turton going over in the corner and winger Sam Hurley converting, the visitors were 7-0 ahead.
With a couple of knock-on's Raiders struggled to get anything going and although enjoying plenty of the ball were struggling to get into the Sutton & Epsom half.
When they finally managed that Blair Campbell telegraphed a pass to his left which was intercepted and two minutes of concerted pressure in the Raiders 22 followed.
Raiders were certainly making life difficult for themselves although there were plenty of positive signs from the forwards where Horrocks was taking some stopping each time he had his hands on the ball.
But pressure was bound to tell and on the 27th minute mark Raiders won their lineout in front of the gym and Tom Ceillam dived over.
Sadly, Whitehead’s kick went well wide and Raiders remained behind with half time approaching.
Raiders were moving through the gears and Whitehead made a super break which led to Dan Hill scoring easily in the corner for 12-7 lead.
Whitehead’s kick from wide left hit the post and fell safe but within a couple of minutes Horrocks made a powerful break from the back of the scrum and 50 metres later out in the supporting Luke Sayer to score in the corner.
Whitehead converted for a 17-7 lead at the break.

For the second half restart Malcolm Barnes gave way to the young Aussie Kyle Brown and within a minute the lead had been cut to three as Matt Whittaker carved his way and Hurley converted in front of the posts.
A resurgent Sutton & Epsom then saw See’s drop goal from 30 metres level the scores with half an hour remaining.
Raiders finally got back on the offensive and from a lineout move in the corner Horrocks barged over from close range, no more than he deserved for a hugely promising competitive home debut.
With Whitehead again missing the extras the advantage was five going into the last quarter.
It was too close to call but there was some relief for Raiders when eight minutes from the end of normal time young Brown was given the chance of putting Raiders eight clear with a penalty in front of the posts and he nailed the kick to give the home team a little breathing space.
‘Sutton are a good side and they have thrown a lot of cash at their team and if that’s what they’ve got we should be really happy with what we’ve got,’ said a smiling Reynolds afterwards.
‘I think our scrum saved us today.’

Meanwhile, near Crawley Taylor Quate scored two tries for the Vikings and there were one apiece from Leon Collenette, Brad Webb and Ben Holland as they finished strongly to win 39-14 over St Francis and shut out the home side after half time.
Alex Bailey nailed three conversions and he was also successful with a penalty.
It was 19-14 to the visitors at the break.

The Raider's men travel to Tunbridge Wells RFC this Saturday, whilst the Ladies and Vikings have a break until the 23rd September. The Ladies are to play at home and the Vikings away, respectively.