After 80 minutes of close fought play and with the scores tied on 20 points each, a courageous late Sutton surge forced a penalty for the home side 25 metres out, to the left of the posts. An ice cool Alex White stepped forward for Sutton and the focused goal kicker sent the ball dead centre between the posts to secure a morale boosting win for a Sutton side who are still searching for the precision play and consistency of recent seasons but with a performance such as this against a Bromsgrove team who were playing at Level 4 last season, they are not far from being the finished article.

The win not only moved Sutton up to 5th in the league table after 3 games, with 2 wins and a loss, it also preserved Sutton's impressive home record. The RSG has only witnessed 2 defeats in 42 home games since Sutton were promoted to the National Leagues in 2012. The defeats include a loss to South Leicester in Nov 2012 and defeat to Harrogate in the play off for promotion to National 2 at the end of their first season in National 3.

In this game Bromsgrove kicked off and started driving strongly towards the Sutton try line with strong surges but Sutton resisted well and neutralised the drives with a well organised defence. However Sutton were penalised for not releasing quickly enough at a breakdown in the Sutton 22 and fly half Richard Mahoney gave the visitors a 3-0 lead after 5 minutes of play with a well struck penalty. During the next period of play Sutton held their own at the scrum and were dominant at the lineout, safe on their own ball and stealing the opposition ball on a number of occasions but they were unable to capitalise on their advantage and it was the visitors who scored next to extend their lead to 6-0 midway through the first half when Sutton were penalised and yellow carded for killing the ball at a ruck in their 22 and Richard Mahoney punished Sutton further with his second penalty.

Although Sutton started the first half slowly they picked up their play in the second quarter to finish the first half strongly. The fight back started with a penalty by centre Alex White for 6-3 on 30 minutes and then skipper Fraser Tait scored in the corner following a quickly taken tap penalty to give Sutton a narrow 8-6 lead at the break.

Unfortunately Sutton could not maintain their new found momentum at the start of the second half and it was the visitors who reasserted themselves to retake the lead at 8-9 with another penalty by Richard Mahoney on 4 minutes, followed by a try for right wing Tom Hunt on 15 minutes, extending their lead to 8-17. Again Sutton responded well and after a period of structured play the backs broke down the right wing setting up player/coach Ben Toft, on at fullback for the injured Josh Rolls, to join the line and weave his way over the try line to score in the right corner bringing the score back to 13-17 with 10 minutes left to play.. then as Sutton pushed on for victory sustained pressure created an opening for fly half Josh Groom. As play advanced up the Sutton left wing and into the opposition 22 the ball was swung infield smartly by scrum half Mark Rayner reaching the Sutton fly half, who powered through a half gap to ground the ball under the posts. The conversion by Alex White gave Sutton a 20-17 lead with just 4 minutes to play setting up a tense finale. In a frenetic final period the Sutton backs were caught off side in front of the posts and Richard Mahoney levelled the scores at 20 all with 2 minutes left to play before the dramatic finish, which ended the game in Sutton's favour and was just reward for Sutton's character and dogged determination after the disappointment at Nuneaton the previous weekend.

This weekend Sutton travel to Old Halesonians looking to continue the acclimatisation of their developing new look team against an old foe, who traditionally take the game right down to the wire. KO 3pm.