After Pearson centre Troy Hargreaves completed an outstanding build-up try for Pearson, the score climbed to Pearson 25 Selborne 10 with 10-minutes to play.
It was writing on the wall stuff. A well-deserved win for hosts was on the cards. To be fair they had looked like the better of the two team based on the balance of play and at that point the only let down was that kicking at posts could have delivered more points.
However Selborne somehow from somewhere found the resilience, the determination, the self-belief, the execution and all the great things one can say about this incredible comeback to score 19-unanswered points and eventually win the match 29-25 off the last move of the match.
During this closing period, Pearson did not do themselves many favours as they found themselves conceding too many penalties.
The catalyst of the awesome fightback was definitely Selborne inside centre Siyamthanda Sakhela, who throughout the match looked like the East London based boys’ school’s best source of go-forward.
Siyamthanda produced an excellent individual effort to score the first of the three come from behind tries.
Once Selborne had this stiff of a victory at 17-25 with 8-minutes to go, they were a different beast.
Siyamthanda then played a key role in the next try by feeding and doubling around No.8 Josh Cloete, which helped create the decoy which Cloete worked to maximum advantage as he dummied and raced into a gap between three defenders to score and bring the match to within a one-point deficit.
With time up, sustained red-zone pressure was rewarded when left wing Njongo Mbanga latched onto an opportunity to retrieve the ball from a ruck and force it down over the line after the Pearson defence had been fully stretched by the composed in error-less attack Selborne team.
Talented scrumhalf Page Fennel landed three conversions and a penalty and hooker Luke McGregor had scored Selborne’s first try earlier in the second half.
The win sets up good confidence and hype ahead of the first big Border derby of 2024 when Queen’s College travels to East London.
Legends are born…