Raiders lose at home to leaders Ealing

The loss saw Worthing drop a place to ninth in the table, although the table-toppers were made to work hard for the win.

Worthing’s Matt McLean, the third top scorer in the league heading into the match, missed an early penalty and Ealing touched down the first of their five tries on seven minutes.

Peter Hodgkinson broke quickly and passed out wide to Phillip Chesters and he went over, before the league’s top scorer, Neil Hallett, kicked the conversion for his 152nd point of the season.

Hallett then kicked a penalty wide before Raiders got on the scoreboard when McLean put over a penalty on 18 minutes.

Moments after a yellow card to Ealing’s Owen Bruynseels in the 27th minute, Raiders took the lead. Joe Govett went on a quite outstanding run, skipping past several tackles, before passing out wide to captain James Arthur, who touched down. McLean kicked over the tricky conversion but the home side soon had to replace Arthur, who suffered a suspected broken bone in his hand in the early stages of the game and landed on it when scoring the try, although an x-ray later revealed no obvious breaks.

Seconds after Bruynseels returned to the action, Worthing went down to 14 men when Charlie McGowan was sinbinned for collapsing a maul and Ealing made the extra man count with tries either side of half-time.

Steve Neville touched down to give the leaders a 12-10 half-time lead and they extended their advantage three minutes into the second period when Ben Ward brilliantly kicked across the pitch to Bruynseels, who had plenty of time to go over.

Rob Buchanan then went over in the corner for Ealing and Hallett kicked the conversion to make it 24-10 on 51 minutes but Raiders reduced the deficit four minutes later when Ben Dudley fed McLean, who touched down in the corner but was unable to make the conversion.

Ealing got their fifth try when Chesters dived forward to just get a hand to the ball to touch down – a try that was awarded after a conversation between the referee and touch judge – to give the visitors a 29-15 lead.

McGowan went over with 10 minutes left, although McLean missed the conversion, but Raiders were unable to close the gap further and Ealing increased their winning margin when Hallett struck over a penalty in the last action of the game.

Raiders coach Will Green said afterwards: “We played some great rugby, we really did, and I thought we deserved a point – either through a losing bonus point or by getting a fourth try.

“But I was pleased with our attitude. We never laid down and it was pretty impressive after the battering we had at Richmond last week.

“Jamie Redmayne had a good game and Joe Govett was back to his best and he can take a lot of confidence from his performance.”

WORTHING: Luke, Govett, Dunckley, McLean, Nielsen, Dudley, Costigan; Emmett, Miles, Bruce, Coxon-Smith, McGowan, Arthur, Redmayne, Smith. Subs: Hewick (Arthur 31), Sullivan (Luke 52), Cleveland, Webster (Bruce, Hewick 65), Maslen (Nielsen 76).