Described as a 'must win' by the coaching staff, the boys clearly needed to exercise their demons after their visit to Guernsey last week. Following what would have been a fairly intensive training week putting right those quick fixes and establishing a proper level of coherency, they were probably well regrouped but this game was never going to be a gimme - it was going to be hard against a side that seems to be generating some momentum but we always stood a chance of getting some return on a decent performance. Damp and cold, negligible wind - it was clear the boys had arrived in a focused mood and the first half was a clear demonstration of their solid defensive commitment. Westcombe Park with what looked like a bigger scrum, generated some expansive phase play, playing to the corners and looking to saturate and breach the defence, but Havant held firm for most of the time. Indeed their defensive shift in the first half was very impressive, both on our own line and deep in the opposition red zone, with the only real challenge being presented by the WP 6 and 8 who were clearly strong and capable runners, who carried well, breaking tackles as they went and routinely seemed to provide the target for the WP support runners in attack. While both teams were level at half time (10-10), the balance of play was probably aligned to the WP output, who seemed to be penetrating further on their attacks only to be denied by our impressive defensive effort. The positive takeaway - we looked to be in control, hadn't suffered any injuries and might now be able to turn up the pace in the second half.

Second half was somewhat different, not with standing an early Havant penalty to take the lead (10-13), WP continued to build on their first half performance and were making Havant work hard to live with them. What scraps of possession we got were intermittent and largely too far from the WP red zone to enable any real momentum to build. Approaching the end of the 3rd quarter, Joel got a card for a high tackle, and this seemed to create the space that WP needed to kick into gear. They quickly got another converted try (17-13) and looked set to turn up the pace. Happily Havant survived the JK 10min absence unscathed, but for a penalty (20-13). ... and then like many of the games in this league, there was suddenly a burst of WP try scoring, our defence was stretched and through good support running, WP scored twice in relatively quick succession. (34-13). What had looked like a Losing Bonus Point performance suddenly looked very bleak - Happily in the dying minutes of the game, and probably one of our very few attacking approaches to their line, Alfie Wainscoat managed to get over after a passing move and underlined the potential that this squad has got. L34-20 - No points and a few handbags for out troubles!

Clearly as the coaches will have already identified, if we can't routinely dominate every stage of our first phase possession then we are denying ourselves a proper attacking platform and committing to having to live off scraps from defensive spillage or turnovers. The reality of today's output seemed to highlight there is still some work to do in our lineout and while the scrum did well to hold its own against some big lumps - we probably weren't seeing the quality of 1st phase possession we needed to give our backs a chance to properly exploit their opponents. In a similar manner while our backrow did very containing a lively and robust WP threat for most of the time - we weren't really able to really replicate any regular threat in any meaningful manner.

A Solid performance defensively which the boys should take heart from, but for second half loss of focus we might have been more competitive throughout the second half and prevented WP getting their tails up and effectively exploiting their pace.

Will Knight's thoughts after the game
"We were disappointed to come away with nothing today. We had the better of the early exchanges and chances to get on the scoreboard but we lacked the accuracy to get across the line. We defended pretty well but they were good in the second half and in the end deserved the win. We have a tough game at home next week and I am sure that the team will be keen to put a few things right."