The wheels fell off Ventnor’s promotion band wagon last Saturday when they lost to second place Overton.
Ventnor started slowly and fell behind after 10 minutes when the Overton scrum half darted over from 10 yards out. This seemed to shake Ventnor into action. The forwards began to win good ruck ball and made in-roads into the Overton defence.
The game was beginning to be played in the Overton half when, against the run of play, an intercepted pass and break ended in a scrum being awarded 10 meters from the Ventnor line. The ball shot straight out of the the resulting scrum and was picked up by the Overton flanker who scored in the corner. The referee should have disallowed the try and reset the scrum but sadly failed to do so.
Ventnor regrouped and camped in the Overton half, but couldn’t turn the possession into points and again Overton had a slice of luck when they were awarded a retaken penalty which gave them a line out close to Ventnor’s line.
Overton drove from the lineout and were held up over the line by great Ventnor defence, only for the referee to strangely award a try. Ventnor’s misery continued in the close of the first half when both captain Newbery and his fellow prop Walker were injured and had to leave the field. Kenny reduced the deficit with a penalty on the stroke of half time.
The second half was backs against the wall time for Ventnor with Overton camping in the Ventnor 22. Fantastic defence, led by the magnificent Magnurson, kept Overton from scoring time and again but in the end tiredness led to Overton scoring twice more to make the final score 27-3 to Overton.
Ventnor didn’t get the breaks, but can take great heart from the spirit and effort they showed, especially in the second half.
Team: Newbery, Jesney, Walker, Morley, Ricketts, Penner, Pickard, Magnurson, Cooper, Kenny, Babington, Harris, Jones, D Marriot, A Marriott, Benfield, Price.