Petersfield slipped to a 29-25 defeat at Chobham in South Central Two on Saturday.
Within two minutes Petersfield were pinged for offside and Chobham took the three points on offer.
.jpeg?width=209&height=140&crop=209:145,smart&quality=75)
.jpeg?width=209&height=140&crop=209:145,smart&quality=75)
Petersfield’s response was to move into the home team’s 22. Chobham’s tackler was slow to roll away and Nick Blumlein kicked for the corner. Petersfield relied on their lineout rolling maul to provide Dan Sargent a route to cross the tryline in the corner. The conversion fell just outside the left post.
From the restart Chobham secured the ball and moved through several phases to score an unconverted try in the left corner to go 8-5 ahead.
At the start of the second quarter Franco Tomic was yellow carded for a late tackle. Petersfield transgressed in front of their posts with hands in the ruck and Chobham added three points. Chobham added another penalty kick when the visitors were judged offside.
Field’s Blumlein took a penalty in front of the posts to make it 14-8. In the minute before half-time a Chobham player received a red card.
Chobham opened the scoring in the second half when they mauled the ball and split Petersfield’s defence for their outside centre to pick an angled line to dot down over the line.
Chobham then scored an unconverted try to go 26-8 ahead.
A penalty kick to the right corner and a Petersfield lineout take set up a maul that became static, but Sargent spotted a gap to crash through from five metres to score. Blumlein added the extras to make it 26-15.
Another Petersfield infringement in front of the posts gifted three points to Chobham.
Chobham gave away several penalties and Petersfield looked for lineouts in the corners. Sargent got his hat-trick try in the opposite corner to his second to make it 29-20.
Matt Momber poached the ball from the base of a collapsing maul to burrow over in the left corner for an unconverted try to make it 29-25.
The final three minutes were spent in the Chobham 22 but the hosts held on.
Petersfield will host Bournemouth at Penns Place on Saturday, November 9.
By Chris Todd