A missed conversion at the end of the game saw Petersfield lose 23-22 at home to Regional Two South Central leaders Winchester on Saturday.

In the seventh minute Petersfield number eight Liam Perkins broke through the defence, and with support on his left shoulder he offloaded. Play moved to the left touchline, where a Petersfield penalty and a contested line-out saw Petersfield form a scrappy maul for Dan Sargent to crash over the line. Matt McLean converted and Petersfield led 7-0.

A clash of heads saw Petersfield full-back Joe Knowles replaced by 18-year-old Mackenzie Van Luan, who had an excellent home debut.

Almost from the restart Petersfield moved aggressively into Winchester’s half, and once within reach of the visitors’ 22 opened up their back line, passing the ball to Miles Sampson who used his pace, strength and agility to fend off tackles and cross the line in the corner for an unconverted try, giving Petersfield a 12-0 lead.

After a period of stalemate, good work from Winchester’s pack released their backs. The ball was passed from left to right for an unconverted try in the right corner to make it 12-5.

Sampson added Petersfield’s third try, again unconverted, in the right corner to give the hosts a 17-5 half-time lead.

At Winchester earlier in the season Petersfield also led 17-5, and the home support hoped they would not implode as they had in the second half there.

Winchester opened the second half by scoring an unconverted try to make it 17-10, and were then awarded a penalty on Petersfield’s ten-metre line to pull it back to 17-13.

Winchester scored next from a line-out, moving the ball one-touch through their fast and evasive backs to score near the opposite touchline and convert to lead 20-17.

With five minutes left Petersfield gave away a further penalty which presented Winchester with another kickable position, which they took cleanly to increase their lead to 23-17.

But from the restart Petersfield secured the ball and drove at the visitors’ defence, battering away through the pack and attempting to run round through their back line.

Several attacks were repelled by Winchester, though a couple of knock-ons and penalties for not releasing enabled Petersfield to keep the pressure on.

Petersfield’s forwards took control from 30 metres out, picking and driving, rucking and mauling, not losing possession or giving the referee reason to penalise.

Having driven back Winchester to their 22, they bulldozed their way towards the try line. Liam Perkins picked up the ball and ran round the short side, shrugged off three potential tacklers and stumbled towards the five-metre line in front of the posts.

Finding Franco Tomic on the charge on his right shoulder, he offloaded for Tomic to stretch his two-metre height plus outstretched arms over the line under the posts.

With the score 23-22 Petersfield needed a conversion to win, but they were unsuccessful, leaving them with two bonus points and the moral victory of losing by the smallest margin of all the sides beaten by Winchester this season.

Chris Todd