Petersfield won 34-12 at Guildford in Regional Two South Central.

From the kick-off Petersfield attacked Guildford’s line. Dan Chinnock got the ball away to Matt McLean, who passed to Joe Knowles, and Knowles jinked around Guildford’s defence to score the first try.

Petersfield’s second try followed soon afterwards. Eddie Matthews turned on the gas and saw that Knowles inside him had just a couple of defenders to beat. Matthews passed to Knowles, who rounded the defence to score an unconverted try.

Guildford opened their account with a well-worked try from their backs after Petersfield missed some tackles.

McLean charged up field and as Guildford closed him down he passed to Karter Whittock, who burst through a couple of tackles to cross the line to add a third try to Petersfield’s account. Knowles successfully kicked the conversion to give Petersfield a 17-5 lead at half-time.

Early in the second half from a penalty lineout Guildford’s pack outmuscled Petersfield and with the ball secured rolled round the tail to touch down and score their second try, which was converted.

Franco Tomic made several metres for Petersfield and offloaded to Oli Hunt, who was brought down a metre short of scoring. Chinnock pounced on the ball and passed to an unmarked Dan Sargent, who bounced off two potential tacklers and crashed over the line. Knowles added the conversion.

Petersfield were awarded a penalty 30 metres out in front of the posts, and Knowles added three points to his tally.

Matthews suffered an injury which resulted in Petersfield playing the final ten minutes with just 14 fit players.

In the final five minutes of the match a superb interception of a pass ten metres out of Guildford’s half by Knowles saw him sprint 60 metres unopposed to score between the posts and complete his hat-trick.

By Chris Todd