Hurricanes undone by Trojans

RUGBYSandown and Shanklin 0, Trojans 21
HOPES that Sandown and Shanklin Hurricanes could spring a Gales Bowl final surprise on higher-league Trojans were quashed at the Fairway on Saturday.
Trojans, who have just gained promotion to London South West 3, won this contest with a convincing scoreline, although battling Hurricanes were unlucky not to have had one try or penalty kick to show for their efforts.
Straight from the kick-off, Hurricanes harassed the Trojans defence, forcing a five-metre scrum, but they cleared their line. Continued early pressure forced errors from Trojans, although they managed to claw their way back into an attacking position and took the lead with a penalty kick, although there seemed to be initial confusion as to whether it actually went over the posts.
This spurred the Hurricanes into action and the next ten minutes were spent in the visitors’ 22, both Ricky Harris and captain Joe Rees coming close to scoring.
However, the Hurricanes must learn to match such pressure with points, as the visitors cleared their line with no score and, after around ten close-in phases, Trojans showed Hurricanes how it was done, powering over to score a converted try to give them a 10-0 lead.
Hurricanes were doing a superb job to keep Trojans at bay with some tremendous defensive play and tackling, in particular from scrum half and Wightlink man of the match Richard Booth, and NatWest forwards man of the match, hooker Ben Allman.
However, in an extended injury time, the visitors kicked another penalty to go 13-0 up.
Early in the second half Trojans made it 16-0 with another penalty kick, after Hurricanes were caught offside.
Trojans were making their fair share of infringements too and this led to one of their players being sin binned for ten minutes. Sadly though, this seemed to be of no advantage to the Island side as Trojans carried on regardless and scored an unconverted try in the corner to make it 21-0.
Sandown and Shanklin dug deep again and forced Trojans back and, after they were forced into errors in midfield, Charlie Sutton kicked on, defenders tried to scramble the ball away under the posts and Will Baxendall picked up and scored what looked like a perfect try. However, for some reason the referee adjudged a knock-on and disallowed the effort.
Minutes later, in another baffling decision by the officials, Hurricanes were charging towards the try line while on an advantage for a Trojans error, when the referee called play back, sparking furious calls from the home support.
Trojans could have had the last say on the match when they were awarded a last-minute penalty by the spot-kick was missed.
Hurricanes now need to regroup ahead of this weekend’s final league game, at home to New Milton at the Fairway tomorrow (Saturday).
In what has been a highly important month for the club, Sandown must win the match to gain a play-off promotion spot.
Sandown and Shanklin: Allman, Bagnell, Baxendall, Berry, Booth, Chandler, Edmunds, Eldridge, Gough, Harris, Healey, Hunter, Jones, Morey, S. Rees, J. Rees, Robinson, Skelly, Sutton, Thomas, Tolley, Wales.