Worthing cruise to victory over Canterbury

WORTHING Raiders Rugby Club continued their excellent form on Saturday with a 57-22 win over Canterbury to record their fourth win from five National League 2 South matches.

It was their second win of the month and Raiders team manager David Hinchliffe said: “We’re at Dings on Saturday, which is a tough place to go, but if we can get a win there, we’ve got Newbury at home at the end of the month and we’d hope to get a result against them, although they are improving.

“We want to get four wins out of four in February and have got to keep pressing to see where we can get in the league.

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“We’re just below where we were this time last season but the teams above us are in range, so we’ve just got to keep going.”

Saturday’s game was all but over after just 29 minutes, by which stage Raiders had raced into a 26-0 lead.

Matt McLean converted his seventh-minute opening try, before Sam Hewick went over two minutes later and McLean again added the extras.

Richard Briggs’ touch down on 18 minutes went unconverted but McLean did add the extra two points for Charlie McGowan’s 29th-minute try. Canterbury got a converted try back on 34 minutes but Raiders still added another two by half-time.

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Matt Miles went over in the last minute and Hewick touched down four minutes into injury-time, with McLean kicking one of the two conversions.

Hewick completed his hat-trick with his sixth try of the season two minutes into the second half.

Canterbury got their second try on 52 minutes before Jonathan Michael got his first try for Worthing.

Canterbury got their four-try bonus point after tries on 71 and 76 minutes but Raiders had the final say when man-of-the-match McGowan got his second try in injury-time and McLean added his sixth conversion of the game with the last kick of the game.

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McLean has now kicked 196 points this season, behind only Ealing’s Neil Hallett, who has 227, and Hinchliffe said: “I feel Matt’s the best kicker in the league.

“You have to consider how many tries Ealing have scored, compared to us, and Matt’s only 31 points behind their kicker. His percentage must be much better.”

Hinchliffe added: “We really played well for the first 25 to 30 minutes. We played at a high tempo, with pace, and it was difficult to keep that going all game as it was pretty much job done at half-time.”

WORTHING: Emmett, Cleveland, Webster, Coxon-Smith, McGowan, Miles, Hewick, Redmayne, Costigan, Luke, Marsh, Dunckley, Sullivan, Briggs, McLean. Subs: Michael (Briggs 40), Pointing, Arthur (Cleveland, Miles 52), Bruce (Emmett 57), Dudley (Dunckley 60).