Horsham came out narrowly on top with a momentous 25-28 away win at Brighton in a thrilling local derby. The Green and Whites claimed local bragging rights by completing their first double over Brighton for more than 25 years in the battle of the two bottom sides in the league.

Horsham remain 11th in the table but are now level on points with Hammersmith & Fulham and Tunbridge Wells and have six games of the season remaining to finish above one of these two sides to avoid relegation and remain in Regional 1 South Central, which is level five of the national league pyramid, the highest in the club’s history.

The fixture had been rescheduled following the frozen conditions two weeks earlier.

Brighton raced into an early 12-0 lead with tries from Will Varley and Max Morris before Horsham came back with a converted try from skipper Josh Earle, following multiple phases in the 22 metre area, and a penalty from Oli Chennell to narrow the deficit at half-time to 12-10.

Both sides traded penalties early in the second half before Morris for Brighton cut open Horsham’s defence through midfield for his second try and take a 22-13 lead on 63 minutes and the home side looked to be on their way to victory.

Horsham had other ideas and two minutes later scored through Luke Miller with a huge touchline conversion from Chennell. Then when Chennell slotted a further penalty on 72 minutes, Horsham crept into a 22-23 lead for the first time in the game.

The lead see-sawed again with a Brighton penalty before Joe Blake scored a try for Horsham after 78 minutes to secure what had for most of the game appeared to be an unlikely 25-28 away win.

A delighted Horsham Head of Rugby, Nick Stocker, said after the game: “An important result for the club today as it keeps us in the hunt for league survival. Having lost 2 matches recently in the last two minutes when arguably we were the better team, today we got the rub of the green and secured the win with only moments to play. Both teams played hard, if a little error prone given the significance of the game from a local rivalry perspective and there was little to separate the sides.

With a number of strong performances, Luke Miller was eventually awarded man of the match in only his second game since arriving from Australia and given the way he and his fellow traveller Josh Fisher have settled, we are excited to see how the rest of the season pans out.

Next assignment is CS Stags away where we will be doing our best to get points to continue our push up the table.”