OLD Gravesendians continued their run of poor results, this time against Sussex side Horsham.

The home team were shorn of first choice players for various reasons, facing a Horsham side strengthened by many players returning from injury.

Those who did turn out for Old Gs at least gave a good account of themselves and were unlucky not to score some points of their own. The score in no way reflects the amount of possession gained and territory occupied by Old Gs, the difference in the end being the better teamwork, organisation and general attention to detail of the visitors.

A few early missed tackles, and a failure to gather a kick ahead, allowed Paddy Smith to open Horsham’s account, Matt Goodsir converting.

It is becoming a habit for Old Gs to concede long distance counter-attack tries and this game was no exception.

Old Gs had a constructive few minutes of play, but it all came to nothing.

The spilt ball was scooped up by Horsham, passed wide, an overlap was created and a turbo charged burst from winger Dan Bourne was enough to secure the visitors second try.

Goodsir added the extras and soon kick a penalty for a 17-0 lead.

Old Gs were then reduced to 14 men after a sin binning and held out well for a while with some exceptional tackling from Mark Fenton-Smith and the combative Alex Rea.

On the stroke of half-time, the rush defence was undone by a little kick through and the ball was touched down first by Horsham’s Rob Grantham-Hill, only after a desperate scramble by a muddle of attackers and defenders.

No sooner had Old Gs been restored to 15 men when they lost another player to the bin, which meant another 10 minutes of trying to stop Horsham from constructing an overlap for their extra man or using their extra forward to advantage.

It proved to be the latter as Old Gs’ reduced pack could not stop a powerful driving maul near their line.

Rees Ferrier touched down and Goodsir converted.

Another counterattack try quickly followed.

An indifferent kick ahead was picked up by Stuart Charnley and some tired tackling allowed him to power past a number of defenders to the glee of his teammates who were revelling in their good fortune and Old Gs’ misery.

This humiliating try was at least a spur to Old Gs to up their defensive effort despite being 36-0 adrift.

Although lacking any real organisation, each player was fully committed and it wasn’t lack of effort that allowed the next score.

It took something different and unexpected.

Visiting centre Paddy Smith sold an outrageous dummy to the three tacklers surrounding him and he darted through the gap, effortlessly sprinting all the way to the line.

Rea had proved a bit of a handful throughout the game.

His perseverance almost paid off when he took off on a burst towards the line laying waste to Horsham tacklers as he went.

Richard Oxtoby was on hand to receive the scoring pass, but unfortunately he was dragged down without having received the ball.

The guilty defender was sin-binned for his trouble but it was little consolation for Old Gs, who had to forego their one clear scoring chance.

A final supreme effort rattled Horsham as Steve Jarrett, Matt Johnson, James Whittington and others attacked with some gusto.

The pressure told and Horsham, trying to stop the attacks illegally, lost a second player to the bin, reducing them to 13.

Old Gs were unable to take advantage and they soon became increasingly weary and frustrated.

Horsham were still full of running and Old Gs struggled to contain a length of the field breakout.

Despite being thwarted, the visitors kept their field position and as the game concluded, scored twice more with tries from Stuart Charnley and Neil Holden, both converted by Goodsir.