A good win on the road against a competitive Guildford gave Petersfield five league points, scoring five tries, three conversions and a penalty, with full-back Joe Knowles top points scorer with twenty-four points.

From the kick-off, Petersfield attacked Guildford’s line with the back row of Jack Janaway, Alex Robinson and Karter Whittock putting Guildford’s receiving pod under pressure and gaining possession of the ball. Quick reactions from young scrum-half Dan Chinnock got the ball away to fly-half Matt McLean who, at speed, passed to full-back Joe Knowles who jinked around Guildford’s defence to score right of the posts. Knowles, who was selected as goal kicker, failed to bisect the posts, though with just two minutes on the clock a five-point lead was encouraging. 0–5

With less than ten minutes on the referee’s watch, a second Knowles try from an excellent backs move — with centres Seb Tuff and Miles Sampson carrying and right wing Eddie Matthews turning on the gas — saw that Joe Knowles, at speed inside him, had just a couple of defenders to beat. Matthews passed to Knowles, who rounded the defence to score a further unconverted try. 0–10

Guildford opened their account with a well-worked try from their backs after Petersfield missed some tackles and gave Guildford a clear route to the try line. Their try remained unconverted after fifteen minutes of the first half. 5–10

From the touchline, two slightly concerning features of Petersfield’s play were noted: the normally dominant scrum was under severe pressure, never looking the secure unit it usually is, and the poor to non-existent clear takes at restarts. Both, perhaps, could be addressed by the coaches at future training sessions.

In contrast, the line-out was working well with props Dan Sargent and Jackson Clark doing the heavy lifting, while second rows Zac Conley and Franco Tomic used their height and experience to secure throw-ins and disrupt Guildford’s efforts.

From Guildford’s restart, their fly-half Joe Gwyther used his powerful boot to sky the ball over the approaching Petersfield backs. Petersfield flanker Alex Robinson caught the ball — and a Guildford tackler — as he offloaded to Matt McLean. In the process Robinson received a shoulder injury. McLean, with the ball, charged upfield and as Guildford closed him down passed to number eight Karter Whittock, who burst through a couple of tackles to cross the line and add a third try to Petersfield’s account. Knowles successfully kicked the conversion to take the score to seventeen. 5–17

Meanwhile, injured Alex Robinson left the field to be replaced by Oli Hunt, with Zac Conley moving to the back row. Doubtless these changes may have disrupted the pack, but they continued to menace at the line-out and in loose play.

With half-time approaching, Guildford chose to kick a penalty to give their score some respectability for the effort they had put into the first half; unfortunately, the ball missed the goal. 5–17

Flanker Jack Janaway was injured and replaced by his younger brother Sam, who went into the front row as hooker Sam Brown moved to replace Jack at flanker.

For the final minutes of the half Petersfield were in Guildford’s twenty-two thanks to a couple of penalties taken as kicks to touch and, within a few metres of the try line, the referee judged that Petersfield lost control of the ball and knocked on. Soon after, Guildford found touch and half-time was whistled. 5–17

Early in the second half, from a penalty line-out, Guildford’s pack out-muscled Petersfield and, with the ball secured, rolled round the tail to touch down and score their second try, which was converted. 12–17

At this point it seemed that Guildford had come to the boil while their visitors looked as if they had been taken off the heat.

At a penalty line-out won by the visitors, the ball was passed to the centres who brought it back to the forwards, where Franco Tomic made several metres and offloaded to Oli Hunt, who was brought down a metre short of scoring. Dan Chinnock pounced on the ball and wound out a pass to an unmarked Dan Sargent. Sargent put on his showpiece upright stance, bounced off two potential tacklers and crashed over the line well to the left of the posts. Knowles took a difficult conversion with apparent ease, taking the score to twenty-four. 12–24

The play moved into Petersfield’s half at the restart and Guildford pushed their visitors back to within five metres of their try line. Through a series of scrums and line-outs, Petersfield got out of jail with the excellent pairing of Zac Conley and Oli Hunt scavenging and moving forward from mauls and rucks.

The work of winger Charlie Muir could go unnoticed — both in attack, where he added rapid metres to the field position, and in defence, where he regularly tackled or caught high balls to clear Petersfield’s lines. With play back in the Guildford half, Petersfield were awarded a penalty thirty metres out in front of the posts. Joe Knowles calmly teed up the kick and bisected the posts to add three points to his and Petersfield’s total. 12–27

Mackenzie Van Laun came off the bench for his second consecutive week cameo performance, his reading of the game and positioning showing potential and a maturity that promises much from this teenage product of the club’s academy system. As a third forward was lost to injury, he replaced Eddie Matthews, who moved to flanker.

Unfortunately, Matthews also suffered an injury, resulting in Petersfield playing the final ten minutes with just fourteen fit players.

In the final five minutes of the match, a superb interception of a pass ten metres out from Guildford’s half by the match’s point machine, Joe Knowles, had him sprint sixty metres unopposed to score between the posts and add gloss to that piece of rugby theatre and his hat-trick, converting his own try. 12–34

An excellent game, which seemed to be made better by excellent officiating and great discipline from both teams.

Senior training returns to Penns Place next week as 'Field look forward to hosting Chobham RFC at Penns Place on Saturday 10th January in front of what will be a rowdy ladies lunch crowd.

Once again apologies for the slow upload of this match report, 2026 will see them uploaded faster and plenty more content on our website. We hope you had a very Merry Christmas and we will see you in the New Year!