Horsham fall to spirited defeat against Westcombe Park

Emmet O'Rahilly (centre) was voted Horsham's man of the match against Westcombe Park. Picture by Darryl Sears

Westcombe Park enjoyed a comfortable 48-27 win at Horsham in blustery conditions to close the gap on Havant at the top of the table.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for the visitors as the Green and Whites narrowed the gap to 38-27 midway through the second half before Westcombe Park pulled away with a converted interception try and a penalty.

Westcombe Park were soon on the scoreboard when Charlie O’Sullivan capitalised on a dropped ball.

Tom Johnson replied with a penalty but Dan Hamilton ran through several missed tackles to score under the posts, converted by Harvey Young.

Minutes later missed tackles in the centres saw Max Wilkins break to put Nick Hill away to score.

Horsham responded in their first meaningful attack when Declan Nwachukwu shrugged off a couple of tacklers to then accelerate away to score under the posts which was converted by Johnson to close the deficit to 10-19.

Hamilton added his second try to secure Westcombe Park’s four try bonus point and then Elliott Powell used his strength to power over and score his first try for the first XV after a succession of good pick and go phases.

The half finished with Young scoring to make the score 15-31.