PJF make Lewes miss Morse

Lewes provided worthy opponents on Saturday pushing PJF all the way to the end of the game that saw the lead change hands five times. But in front of a decent home crowd PJF showed tremendous mettle and never gave up, this was despite a much re-arranged side due to injuries sustained over the past month.

PJF set their stall out early in the game as Hooker David Sia and flanker Henry Montgomery Smith constantly ran the hard yards and lead the penetration deep into the visitors half. From one such break Sia broke and then kicked ahead, PJF followed up supporting the sortie and managed to re-cycle possession and free winger Tom Casey down the left to open the scoring. Moments later the pattern was almost identically repeated and again Casey crossed to take PJF to 10-0.

Seeing this as a ploy that worked PJF made another deep kick into the Lewes 22, the ball was fielded by the visitors' left wing who then carved his way through a lacklustre PJF defence for around 40 yards. He found support and PJF saw their lead eroded as he crossed to score. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and minutes later Lewes repeated the attack from deep and after converting the try took the lead 10-14.

Some good breaks by the PJF backs, in particular the impressive fleet footed Tom O'Toole, had PJF camped in the opponents half for several minutes. From this they moved left and right attacking hard and fast allowing Nick Owen to cut back in from his wing and cross to score another try 15-14 to PJF.

A welcome break at half time allowed both sides to charge their batteries and continue the spectacle in the second half. O'Toole nailed a penalty early on but Lewes worked hard to gain territorial advantage and were rewarded with another try taking the score to 18-21. O'Toole then took the game by the scruff of the neck and made some cutting attacks that shredded the defence. On one such foray, he passed inside the much improved second row Steve Brown who ran in from 25 yards out, the conversion put PJF back in front by 2 points.

With about 8 minutes remaining PJF defended their lead and managed to secure the points when from a scrum 15 yards out the ball passed through several pairs of hands for Murphy to score PJF's fifth try. And so the match ended 30-21 which pleased the crowd.

One game left in 2 weeks PJF visit Hove for the last match of the season.

Other results for PJF at the weekend saw their second team lose to Sutton and Epsom 68-10. A very weak side were unable to contain their local rivals in this merit table clash.

The third team beat Caterhamians 56-10. PJF scored ten tries as they stamped their authority over local rivals. Veterans Bob Scarborough and Simon Cripps bagged a hat trick of tries each, hooker Dave Allan notched a brace and their was one each from Captain Tony Mawer and UberVeteran Mick Kerrigan. Cripps' scores took him to the top of the point scoring table for the 3's and the inquest into his selfish play, for this sole reason, is being heard by the club's committee this week.