‘Nervous’ Havant make winning return to the National League

Hampshire's highest ranked club recovered from 10-0 down to triumph 25-15 at home to Sevenoaks in its first National League 2 East match since 2009.

Head coach Will Knight told The News: "It was an odd one. It was the most nervous I've seen the squad in a long time.

"There were certainly some jitters during the warm-up and we kind of started the game like that. We looked almost like we gave them a bit too much respect and they went ahead.

"But to be fair at the end of the game we were pretty disappointed we didn't come away with a bonus point (for scoring four tries). We felt we left a few tries out there."

A penalty followed by a converted try had Havant trailing 10-0 and things looked to be getting worse still when captain Joel Knight was sent to the sin bin just after the half-hour mark at Hooks Lane.

But that seemed to kick the home side into action and Jacob Knight's penalty got them on the scoreboard before a Sean Shepherd try and Jacob Knight conversion made it 10-10 at half time.

There was a firm belief among the Havant players at the break that they were well capable of going on to win the game and they soon went 17-10 up via a Richie Janes try and Jacob Knight conversion.

Jacob Knight's penalty then made it 20-10 and a debut try in the corner by Ben Griffin stretched the lead further before Sevenoaks nabbed a consolation try five minutes from time.

That score, however, wasn't enough to stop Havant getting off to a winning start and leave them on a high heading into the local derby at Worthing this Saturday.

Will Knight added: "That's a huge game. In terms of the local derbies obviously it's our closest one. It's been a rivalry of sorts over the years.

"Worthing have obviously been in the ascendancy in terms of league position over the last 10-plus years and have been at this level for a long time. We're under no illusions about how tough it will be to go there and get a result."

Havant have returned to the fourth tier of English club rugby after being crowned Regional 1 South Central champions last term, when they won 18 and drew one of their 22 matches.

This season they will come up against the likes of Canterbury, Guernsey, Bury St Edmunds, Oxford Harlequins and Colchester in what their head coach expects will be a big step up.

Will Knight said: "We're under absolutely no illusions about how challenging this league is. There are teams in the league that we know are spending significant amounts of money on their squads and looking to get promoted to National 1.

"It's a big step from the league we were in, but we all feel Regional 1 South Central was one of the strongest leagues at that level. Of course we want to do as well as we can, but the number one thing is to stay in the league.

"Our second objective is our second team has the capacity this year to get promoted. We could end up with the Dolphins playing regional rugby at the end of the season if they manage to get promoted.

"We've had 25, 30 players join the club - not all first-team squad players, but quite a few are really pushing for first and second-team places.

"I think we had 10 debutants at the weekend across the first and second teams. Equally importantly, we've managed to hold on to all the players we had last season."

Outside-centre Tanie Naduva is likely to miss the Worthing game after picking up a knock, while fly-half Reuben Knight is facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines with a broken collarbone.