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Stoke lose out in the final Basingstoke 31 pts v Havant 40 pts at Basingstoke 19th March 2006 HAVANT retained the Hampshire Cup but were made to dig deep by a determined Basingstoke who served notice the class gap between them and their county rivals is closing fast. As a South-West One side to Havant’s National Three South, ’Stoke were always the underdogs heading into Sunday’s final at Down Grange. But Jim Dixon’s men shocked their visitors with a display that Havant captain Jon Barfoot admitted afterwards left his players feeling the game was lost at one stage. That was deep into the second half when ’Stoke, leading 24-21, were encamped in their opponents 22 and dictating proceedings against a strong pack. But they were unable to break through Havant’s defence and get the score they needed to all but place both hands on the Gales sponsored trophy. Instead, a turn-over at a ’Stoke breakdown five metres short of the try-line on 70 minutes led to a free-flowing Havant surge up-field, one that was finished off by their man-of-the-match Matt O’Shea out wide left. Owen Cobbe made the easy conversion and two minutes later, a tired ’Stoke were undone when Havant replacement Anton Petzer scored on the over-lap wide right. Cobbe converted a very tough dead-ball into a fierce breeze to make it 24-28. Although player-coach Dixon grabbed a try on 77 minutes, arriving in support of Carl Marshall’s break and off-load, for a score which was converted by Simon Humberstone to make it 31-35, ’Stoke could not find the territorial gain to pressure for a further score. Instead, they were pegged back inside their own 22 from the kick-off and the efforts to keep the ball alive and run in a try were ended at full-time when a break-down led to a kick forward Havant’s George Pettingell won to seal his team’s success. The outcome was rough justice on ’Stoke, and Dixon commented afterwards: "I am proud of the effort put in by all the boys; it was just a shame a few situations weren’t executed when we had them under pressure, or we’d have won." Havant went 12-0 ahead inside 10 minutes with Ali Ramus finishing off a lineout catch and drive try, unconverted, and O’Shea’s run in when he beat Dave Lambert to a Marshall chip. Simon Buckland responded for ’Stoke with a strong run to finish off Matt Lucas’ good work, before a Cobbe penalty on 29 minutes made it 15-5 to Havant. Ollie Rogers finished off a fine backs move and burst from Lambert to get a try, converted by Humberstone on 34 minutes, to make it 12-15. Then, on the stroke of half-time as ’Stoke pressed hard, number eight Tom Northcote did superbly to charge down Pucs Ngapaku’s attempted clearance kick from inside his try-line, affording big brother Russell the chance to react fast and touch down. In the second half, Cobbe’s 45th minute penalty put Havant 18-17 up before Shane Murphy’s try, converted by Humberstone, made it 24-18, before a further Cobbe penalty reduced arrears and set up the exciting, tense last 20 minutes. ’Stoke: Simon Humberstone; Dave Lambert, Simon Buckland, Matt Lucas, Ollie Rogers; Carl Marshall, Jamie Fish; Shane Murphy, Andrew Rowlands, Kym Townsend, Russell Northcote (rep Adie Hopkins 75mins), Ross Stirling, Jim Dixon, Simon Appleby, Tom Northcote. Not used: Carl White, Robbie Northcote, Mark Rushworth, Grant Murdoch, Freddy Perkins |