Colchester travelled to Worthing on a calm slightly drizzly Saturday for a match between the bottom two teams in National League 2 East, with both clubs threatened with relegation. In a fast and furious match the Raiders came out victorious scoring 5 tries and a last minute penalty with the Essex team getting 4 tries in reply.

Due to the lack of 5 first team regulars due to injury and unavailability Colchester brought in several players from their 2nd team the Ravens who all performed to the best of their ability. Indeed such was the lack of players that coach Mike Haywood had to play at fly-half to make up the numbers. He commented afterwards, " We dug deep and kept working to the end. We had opportunities but didn't always take them.".

The result means that Colchester got 1 bonus point for scoring 4 tries whereas the hosts picked up 5 points moving closer to the Blacks in the league but still remaining in bottom place. Normal captain Danny Whiteman's recently born baby, meant he was unavailable so fellow flanker Cam Kerr was skipper for the match.

Colchester kicked off in front of a crowd of 385 spectators and within a few minutes one of Raider's centres intercepted a pass and ran 50 metres to touch down for the first score which was not converted. The Blacks soon replied after a line-out maul with lock George Liversidge touching down. Wing Jonah Varela converted, putting the visitors in the lead 5-7.

10 minutes later fullback Louis Martin, fleet of foot, charged through the defence to add to the score with an unconverted try making it 5-12.

There followed an intense battle between the two sides with both sets of forwards and backs attacking and defending resolutely both in open play and the scrums and line-outs.

Eventually after 20 minutes the Raiders left wing put in a long kick to touch 5 metres from Colchester's try-line and the hosts secured their line-out, drove forward to touch down a converted try putting them back in the the lead 12-10. Not long after this Raider's fly half gained the ball after another successful line-out and put in a deft kick to his right winger who touched down to extend their half time lead to 17-12.

Not long into the second half Raiders again had a line-out close to the Blacks'
try-line and, following a catch and drive move. their hooker successfully touched down. At this point Colchester were down to 14 men as Haywood had got a yellow card for a high tackle just before. The hosts weren't stopping the pressure and soon they extended their lead to 29-12 when their No 8 broke away in their half, ran 40 metres and offloaded to their fullback who scored and converted a fine try.

Fresh players were needed by the Blacks and Joe McMilan,Villi and Jack Edwards took up the hooker, No 8 and left wing positions to help revitalise the team. The tactic worked and returning Mike Haywood started a move which ended in scrum half Brett Cutbush scoring under the posts. Varela converted closing the gap to 29-19.

Later Martin got his second score after swift running by Haywood and Cutbush. However with the clock running down Colchester conceded yet another penalty on the centre spot and a young Worthing player sealed their victory with a successful long kick which sailed between the posts much to the home crowds jubilation.

Colchester's man of the match was Louis Martin.