Ipswich Rhinos suffer rare home defeat

THE Denny Pryce Ipswich Rhinos stumbled to a rare 46-22 Rugby League Conference Premier Division South home defeat on Saturday, when St Albans Centurions became the first team to win at Ipswich for two years.

The Hertfordshire side were far sharper on the day and the Rhinos' defence, normally their strength, struggled to cope with the strong St Albans runners. Chillcott and Fountain were outstanding on the day for St Albans.

The first 15 minutes were evenly fought until Smith broke through the Rhinos defence after a series of clever off-loads to put St Albans ahead. However that score was quickly cancelled out by Adam Cook's opportunist try for the Rhinos, with a scoot from three metres.

The Rhinos then enjoyed a spell of pressure with both Cook and Pollard held up over the line. However, in what was to become the pattern for the day, a long St Albans kick bounced kindly for Wortley to break away and add to their total, and Wortley then cleverly chipped the defence, caught his own kick and off-loaded under pressure to Chillcott to score to make it 22-6 to the visitors at half time.

In the second half St Albans seemed content to let the Rhinos bring the ball to them, which resulted in the Rhinos enjoying much of the territorial advantage, but the Centurions defence was sound and they continued to hit the Rhinos on the break.

Further tries for the Rhinos from Cook and Louisson made the score 28-16 after 70 minutes, but any hopes of a Rhino recovery were snuffed out when Chillcott scored another try and then from the resultant restart kick, Oli Fountain sprinted 70 metres to make the score 40-16.

From the restart Cook completed his hat-trick for the Rhinos with another short scoot after an attacking set had taken them to the St Albans line - only for Richard Smith to break away from the halfway line for a last-minute Centurion try.

Peter LeMarquand kicked three conversions from four and Chillcott kicked seven from eight to make the final score 46-22.