Winchester show why they are unbeaten this season

Ravens knew they had a game on their hands with unbeaten Div 1 leaders Winchester coming to Gosport Park. They held them to 7-0 in the first half and Winchester appeared rattled.
Ravens score first in the second half through a try by Tom Ellis, converted by Aidan Jarvis. For ten minutes the game sat in the balance but Winchesters handling skills in the backs saw them breech the Ravens defence and take the lead again. Ravens played some of their best rugby for the next 6 minutes but Winchester managed to score next and Ravens heads went down with the too familiar disruptive whining at each other behind the posts. Ravens were unfortunate to concede another when the scorer scrambled over having been tackled and not releasing the ball, unseen by the referee. The self destruct button appeared to be pushed again and players went missing allowing Winchester to dominate the rest of the game and score another before full time.
Aidan Jarvis had a solid game showing how far he has come and Tom Ellis and Ben Wheeler ran some good attacking lines but were unsupported to allow for the slipstream off load to capitalise on the forward momentum. Euan Archbald tackled well and had a storming run that if he had scored could have been the turning point for Ravens, but on the whole it was a quiet day by his standards. Winchester were dominant in the backs with a high level of handling skills, but Ravens dominated up front for much of the game. Too many errors and kicking the ball away in attack again undermined the efforts to win the ball. Too many basic errors leading to penalties that turned around possession and territory.
Ravens need to look at the first half of the Basingstoke game and first 43 minutes of this game and know that they can match all of the Div 1 sides. If they go behind they cannot give up, they cannot turn on their team mates and break up the cohesion. They must stay in the game and look to stay in touch for the 10 point difference losing bonus point or the opportunity to win the game back. Two more league games to go and both are winnable to keep Ravens in Div 1 for the second half of the season. It hasn't been decide yet if 1 or 2 teams go down, two wins will mean Ravens will not be in consideration and will have the opportunity to turn around results in the second half of the season.