Brentwood’s defeat at the hands of Dorking on Saturday was a perfect example of their stop start season so far. Competitive throughout and dominant in large parts of the game, a combination of lack of precision and dogged home defence saw them come away from Surrey pointless and sitting in a precarious position in the league. This, again, was a game that they should have won but they should take great heart from the fact that they outplayed a very good team for long spells and but for an inexplicable drop of the ball in the act of scoring a try that would have put them 1 point behind with 5 minutes to play they should have had at the very least taken a bonus point from the game.

An even first 40 minutes saw both sides score well worked tries, Brentwood’s being a reall team effort. A well won line out on halfway saw move through the backs put Charlie Wilkinson free on the wing, George Bassenger collected his inside pass and powered through a tackle to free Adam Thomas up to continue his fine try scoring run. With the conversion missed, as well as a number of scoring opportunities in a dominant 20 minute period, Brentwood took a narrow 7-8 lead into halftime.

It was a similar story in the second half, multiple chances came and went. In truth they were created by some scintillating rugby. Ed Hornby, the best player on the pitch, opened up the home defence time and time again but the final pass never stuck. Wilkinson beat 5 players but was held up over the try line and Bradley Burr should have scored after neatly sidestepping the last man but fumbling the ball with no one near him. It was to be a costly error as Dorking scored late on to put a false look to the scoreboard. They had visited Brentwood’s 22 only 4 times in the second half scoring 3 tries, one an intercept and two well finished team tries.

The team must look at the positives from this game, they outplayed Dorking for long stretches despite being second best in the set pieces. They have a difficult run of games coming up, starting with Sidcup at home this Saturday but with a little luck and more patience they should see themselves move out of the bottom three.

Team: Bevans-Royston, Richards, Visser, Aldous, Suttle, Killington, Amato, Bassenger, White, Burr, Wilkinson, Thomas, Hornby, Batty, Lucas-Roast Subs: Garnett, Whaley, Galligan.