‘Nervous’ Havant triumph on their National League return
Havant RFC has made a victorious start to its first season in the National
League for 15 years.
Hampshire's highest ranked club recovered from 10-0 down to triumph 25-15 at home to Sevenoaks in its first National League 2 East match since 2009.
Head coach Will Knight told The News: "It was an odd one. It was the most nervous I've seen the squad in a long time.
"There were certainly some jitters during the warm-up and we kind of started the game like that. We looked almost like we gave them a bit too much respect and they went ahead.
"But to be fair at the end of the game we were pretty disappointed we didn't come away with a bonus point (for scoring four tries). We felt we left a few tries out there."
A penalty followed by a converted try had Havant trailing 10-0 and things looked to be getting worse still when captain Joel
Knight was sent to the sin bin just after the half-hour mark at Hooks Lane.
But that seemed to kick the home side into action and Jacob Knight's penalty got them on the scoreboard before a Sean Shepherd try and Jacob Knight conversion made it 10-10 at half time.
There was a firm belief among the Havant players at the break that they were well capable of going on to win the game and they soon went 17-10 up via a Richie Janes try and Jacob Knight conversion.
Jacob Knight's penalty then made it 20-10 and a debut try in the corner by Ben Griffin stretched the lead further before Sevenoaks nabbed a consolation try five minutes from time.
That score, however, wasn't enough to stop Havant getting off to a winning start and leave them on a high heading into the local derby at Worthing this Saturday.
Will Knight added: "That's a huge game. In terms of the local derbies obviously it's our closest one. It's been a rivalry of sorts over the years.
"Worthing have obviously been in the ascendancy in terms of league position over the last 10-plus years and have been at this level for a long time. We're under no illusions about how tough it will be to go there and get a result."
There were certainly some jitters during the warm-up