RUGBY: Worthing captain James Arthur's column (March 18)

Ealing are sitting third in the league and are pushing Rosslyn Park hard for the play-off spot.

On top of that we, as a club, have never beaten Ealing after seven attempts, but the feeling in the squad was that this would be our weekend.

A tough week at training was spent working on the aspects of our game that weren't up to scratch the previous weekend, and also included a special fitness "grounder" on Tuesday night.

We were unfortunate to lose Greg Sullivan on Thursday to a recurring injury but this enabled Chris Meddings to start again in the centre.

There were also the first rumblings of a stomach bug rolling around the club, which would take effect on Saturday.

So to game day. Well, to use an old clich, it was a game of two halves .

The first half started well. We harassed and harried Ealing never allowing them to get into the game or to get their large pack running onto the ball going forward.

As a result we out-played them and out-scored them. At 15-5 up at half-time we had put in a solid first-half performance.

However, this came at a price, we suffered two injuries that came as a big blow to the side, both players having to leave the field before half-time.

Unfortunately the second half did not go to plan.

We probably tried to play too much rugby and chased the game a little too much, as a result we made a few mistakes and with some unfortunately placed kicks, which landed in the grateful arms of Ealing's dangerous full-back, we were punished.

Ealing ran in three tries and gained the bonus-point win at 27-15.

It was not the result that we wanted and in truth the score line was really not representative of the game.

The second half has given us some serious food for thought and we will continue to learn, improve and move forward.

A special mention must go to both our second rows, Joe Govett and Charlie McGowan, who had big games both in defence and attack

The match this week is the re-arranged fixture against Westcombe Park and we hope to see as many of you up there as possible as we try to get back to winning ways.

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