Surrey One

Croydon 0 Old Whitgiftians 17

CROYDON were left to rue their inability to convert pressure into points as Old Whitgiftians ran out comfortable winners to cement second place in the table.

Croydon attacked with ball in hand and looked marginally the better side in a tight first half, but were often denied scoring chances by poor kicks or dropped passes.

The hosts looked set to score after 37 minutes when they ran a quick penalty but Old Whits' winger Simon Etheridge intercepted the final pass to run 70 yards up the left touchline to score in the corner, Rob Butcher adding the tricky conversion.

Croydon continued to press in the second half but never looked like breaking down a strong, aggressive OW defence.

After 54 minutes another counter attack saw No 8 Mike Richner, who had led many forward surges, race 75 yards for a second try.

While the visitors' back line struggled for fluency, Croydon's normally strong set pieces were poor which severely cut down their attacking options.

And when a sequence of well-timed passes took OWs into the Croydon 22, scrum half Nathan Taylor crossed for an unconverted try with six minutes remaining.