Worthing RFC captain James Arthur’s weekly column (October 7)

It was always going to be one of the toughest games we have faced this season.

Shelford are known for their strong rolling mauls and forward dominated play and with the youngest pack Worthing have fielded for many years, it was going to be a hard and physical afternoon.

The game was only a few minutes old when the first of many penalties that littered the game was awarded and Shelford took the lead, soon to be cancelled put by a penalty from Matt McLean for the same offence.

This offence caused confusion all afternoon with both teams struggling to get to grips with the referee’s interpretation of the breakdown.

Joe Govett did score the first try of the game with an excellent interception after a loose pass to take us into the lead.

Shelford then got their large forward pack working and after some sustained pressure, which resulted in a Raider being penalised and sent to the bin and from the resulting lineout, Shelford got their driving maul working and crashed over the line.

The first half remained tight and only some fantastic last ditch and fully committed defence kept them at bay. After another penalty from Matt, we went into half-time with a narrowly lead 11-8.

The second half followed along the same lines as the first, Shelford kept the ball in the forwards and used the maul to get us on the back foot.

At times we defended it well, while at other times we were not so effective.

It is something that we will be looking at at training this week.

For all their pressure, we scored first, after a turnover in our 22, the backs spread the ball wide and showed great pace and hands before Finlay ran a great support line and finished off the move.

As the game came to an end, Shelford did score another try, surprise, surprise, from a driving maul. But it was too little, too late and we finished strongly. The final score being 21-13.

The most pleasing aspect of this victory was the way this young side defended and dogged out a hard-fought win. Yes, there is still plenty to work on but, on the whole, it was a far better defensive display than the previous weeks.

The other results from the weekend saw the top two teams go head-to-head with Jersey beating Henley 33–22. The weekend also saw wins for Canterbury, Old Albanians, Westcombe Park, Richmond, Taunton and Ealing.

This Saturday brings another home game against Southend and we hope to see as many of you up there supporting us as possible.