Cobham's second successive home game was against Brighton Rugby Club one of the oldest rugby clubs in the country founded in 1868. As they were founded before the RFU they are one of the few clubs who are designated F.C. rather than R.F.C but as league leaders they certainly know their rugby and took their chances to secure a tight win.
Played in incessant rain there was plenty of attritional rugby from both sides but it was Cobham who enjoyed the territory and possession in the first half and scored the first try.
Set up by an interception from back row Tom Davison Cobham secured the line out maul and Max MacDonald broke the Brighton Blues defence to score close to the posts 5-0 becoming 7-0 as Farrelly converted.
Brighton are not top of the league without reason and virtually from the restart their fly half crashed through the Cobham line and kicked ahead for their winger to collect in the corner and the conversion from wide out was achieved 7-7.
Cobham immediately restored the pressure they had maintained and from a scrum Max Macdonald broke again this time to set up full back Rory Penfold to score in the corner 12-7.
Brighton had hardly made any incursions into the Cobham half all afternoon but when their did they took their chances and opting to take a scrum from a penalty close to the Cobham line the ball was fed down the line for their centre to score and fly half pick up the extras 12-14
Cobham will have felt cheated by that score line in a half that their dominated but must have felt buoyed by their performance against a team that had beaten Havant 67 -26 the previous week
Brighton came out after half time looking to demonstrate why they were league leaders and literally powered their way over for their third try 12-19 converted to 12-21 but the home side were not going to roll over and hooker Buffini went over after a line out was converted into a successful rolling maul 17-21.
Brighton came straight back from the kick off achieving the scrum and fly half O'Hagan broke through to score under the posts 17-28.
That score must have felt like a body blow for Cobham by Scrum half Saunders captaining the side for the first time picked his team up and with Penfold putting in a try saving tackle Farrelly achieved a a great positional penalty kick to set up the line out
Ben Latimer had been securing line out ball all afternoon and from the line out a strong run from James Mitchell set up James Macdonald to score Farrelly converting 24-28.
Both sides had scored the same number of points in each half but Cobham were not interested in symmetry and two penalties close to the Brighton line came close to providing what would have been the winning score but with the clock ticking down the rain had the final say as the ball went loose.
Director of rugby Steve Pope said ''A massive improvement on last week's performance really positive response from the players and had it not been for a couple of unforced errors right at the end of the match we might of even snuck the win.
Very proud of the boys today they again should just how they are becoming a really exciting side. We have only just scratched the surface on where we can go as a club.
This is going to be a long and interesting season ahead. We are just going to focus on getting better and building on the fun and enjoyable environment we want the club to be.
Some exceptional performances today ... James Mitchell, Ben Latimer, Theo Buffini, Ryan Saunders to name a few. lots of players out injured or unavailable but those selected showing the growing level of competition we have across the squad.
We launched our new Man of the Match award today in partnership with the George & Dragon Pub Thames Ditton which James Mitchell won today.
Congratulations to Brighton,a very good contest today hard fought, physical and played in a great spirit. We look forward to the return fixture."
The Cobras had a good win at home too Brighton 2s and it's really pleasing to see boys enjoying there rugby.
