SANDOWN & SHANKLIN 15, PETERSFIELD 12

PETERSFIELD’S title hopes were slightly dented on the Isle of Wight on Saturday as they lost narrowly to Sandown & Shanklin.

With a game in hand, Sandown have certainly not given up hope of catching ’Field, especially remembering last October at Penns Place when a patched-up home team were blown away by the Hurricanes.

Playing with the wind and down the slope, Sandown immediately had the visitors on the back foot.

Within a minute, Petersfield feared they had lost Franko Tomic to a head injury, but an assessment passed the lock fit to continue after a spell on the touchline. He was not the last ’Field player to sustain an injury and there were numerous stoppages for running repairs throughout a tough game.

The teams exchanged scores during the first quarter. The Hurricanes, after some rapid recycling, scored in the corner, only for Petersfield to quickly reply when No 8 Harley Orr peeled off a lineout to cross over.

Both conversions were missed from wide out and with the teams battling for supremacy, the second quarter settled into a tense arm-wrestle. The deadlock was broken when ’Field fumbled the ball on their own line and the home side pounced to score a converted try.

The half ended with a player from each side banished to the sin-bin and it was 14-a-side for the first ten minutes after the interval.

The stalemate continued until late in the third quarter when the Petersfield backs at last mounted a running assault. Josh Haslett stretched his legs and cut through the defence to score a fine try before catching his breath and adding the extras – match all-square at 12-12.

Crucially, there came another double sin-binning in this feisty encounter and with Petersfield’s earlier miscreant picking up a second yellow and more than ten minutes to go, ’Field faced being outnumbered in the closing stages.

Having failed to score from some try-line scrambles, Sandown chose to kick what turned out to be the decisive penalty.

Petersfield finished strongly with multiple attacks, spurning their own penalty chances in their quest for the try that would win the game outright. The Hurricanes’ defence held out as the clock wound down, gratefully booted a penalty dead to clinch a hard-earned victory.

This was only Petersfield’s third loss of the season and coach James Alder was pleased with the overall performance, admitting that, at the start of the day, he would have taken a losing bonus point from a tricky fixture.

He praised his forwards for a solid effort against a heavyweight pack. “We appear to have one of the smallest packs in the league this season, but we still manage to push the opposition off the ball.”

No wonder, then, that Petersfield’s man of the match came from the pack, Toby Armstrong continuing to ply his trade effectively in the back row.

* New Milton, ’Field’s main rivals for the Hampshire 1 title, came back from a 15-18 half-time deficit to win 32-26 at Fordingbridge, putting them four points clear at the top of the table.

* This Saturday, Petersfield host Overton in the Hampshire Plate semi-finals. Overton are currently top of Hampshire 2, although second-placed Alresford are just two points adrift with a game in hand.