The Mighty Ham back to winning ways in 2023!

Shoreham travelled to Lewes after a heavy loss the previous week, looking to kickstart their 2023 with a first win of the year.

The game started at a reasonably slow pace, thanks to the pitch, which was boggy underfoot having just defrosted from the overnight freeze, and resulted in a number of early handling errors and scrums.

Pitch & weather conditions meant a slow start to the game with the ground boggy underfoot, leading to a number of handling errors and resultant scrums. Shoreham's dominance in the set piece was evident early on, however, poor discipline and poor decision making on Shoreham's part allowed Lewes to pin the away side into their 22m scoring two converted tries in quick succession through their forwards.

Shoreham rallied and replied well just before half time with some direct running through the middle of the park and had a scrum awarded just 10 meters from the Lewes try line. The Shoreham pack walked the Lewes scrum backwards towards the line, allowing Shoreham 8 Harvey Matthews to score an unconverted try from the base.

Half time Lewes 14 Shoreham 5.

The Shoreham half-time team talk called for patience and discipline for the remainder of the game after a poor first half by Shorehams standards - and the Mighty Ham delivered.

They finally began to play to the conditions well and were making good ground with ball in hand. The homeside struggled to keep up with the pace and began to show some indiscipline of their own. The building pressure led to a penalty in front of the posts which Toby Gale knocked over, before also adding the extras for a particularly well crafted backs' move leading to a Charlie Ford try. Shoreham now led by 1.

This momentum swing galvanised the Shoreham team, allowing them to string a number of phases together and strong forward carries broke the gainline, allowing scrum half Schaeff Potter to snipe to score.

With the away sides' tails up and the Lewes team tiring, the pitch began to open up. This once again allowed the backs to craft a slick play, leaving last season's top try-scorer, Charlie Ford, to burst through a gap to dot down under the posts again with 5 minutes to go to secure the 4-try bonus point. Toby Gale, once again, adding the extras to make it 14-27.

Shoreham Captain Mark Lavery said "despite a pretty poor first half from us, it was very pleasing to come back in that manner to score 22 unanswered points. Coming from behind is something we've struggled with, so I'm proud of the team for how we rallied at half time."

Next week sees Shoreham host Uckfield at Buckingham park.