PREVIEW – Chichester (H)
The start of 2025. The start of a new year that always brings new hopes and wishes. For Tottonians, it is all about the next four months and what that might bring. It starts with a home game against Chichester in front of a sold-out pre-match Ladies Lunch.
MATCH: Tottonians v Chichester
VENUE: Water Lane, Totton, SO40 3ZX
COMPETITION: Regional Division 2 South Central
DATE: Saturday 4th January 2025
KICK-OFF: 2:00pm
ADMISSION: FREE (as it should be!)
LIVE MATCH UPDATES: On our Twitter/X channel @Tottonians
OVERVIEW:
Saturday will be a special day at Tottonians Rugby Club as we kick off the new year by celebrating our wonderful ladies who give so much to our club. But, through the incredible hard work of Clair Angell and her band of helpers, we will also be raising awareness and money for Solent Mind and the Men’s Mental Health Group based at Marcella House in Hythe.
Men’s Mental Health is very real and, as a club, we have seen the affects of it in recent times. If you are able to donate to this very worthwhile cause, please do so on this link. Thank you!
https://www.justgiving.com/page/tottonians-rugby-solent-mind
From 2pm though, attention turns to the pitch and an important match to kick off the second half of the season. It is fair to say that Chichester have not had the best of seasons and are winless in their last seven games. But it is also very fair to say that the reverse fixture back at the end of September was a very hard fought contest and Tottonians had to dig very deep to pull out the 38-28 success.
Tottonians start the game in fourth place on 49 points, two behind Winchester in third and three adrift of Bournemoutn in second. Nine points is the gap from Totts to Farnham at the summit but we do have that game in hand coming up at the end of the month against North Dorset.
Chichester are down in 1th place with two wins from their 13 starts – both of which came at home against Newbury and Andover. But the West Sussex men have struggled of late although only lost narrowly at home to Chobham and Guildford in November and North Dorset in December.
What you can be certain of is that they will be coming out all guns blazing and will be looking to repeat one of the most entertaining games seen at Water Lane, an early season 2017/18 fixture in London 1 South which the visitors won 67-34!
Kick-off is at 2pm, and we have a full pre-match lunch in the clubhouse beforehand. Entry is FREE (of course!) and we look forward to seeing you.
TEAM NEWS:
After the trevails of the last league game a fortnight ago against Bournemouth, Tottonians welcome back a number of players from injury and overseas travels for this game.
Starting in the backs, Robbie Searle returns at fly-half while Jamie Laing slots into the centre alongside Tom Tully. Connor Andrews fills in for the unavailable Leo Tongue on the wing.
In the forwards, Nic Jansen returns at number eight after his excursions in his home land while Callum Turvey and Alfie Filmore are selected in the second and back row respectively.
Johnny Lovell is back from his long term arm injury, which has ruled him out for three months, on the bench and he is joined by Kevin Raqio, playing his 50th 1st XV game and Alex Robinson, who passed that 1st XV milestone in the last game at Bournemouth.
HISTORY and STATS:
This will be the 10th league meeting between Tottonians and Chichester since the first in London 3 South-West in 2008. Chichester currently lead the head-to-head 5-4 although Totts have won four of the last five clashes going back to 2018.
The first game was on 25 October 2008 at Water Lane and the visitors dominated in winning 36-3 and repeated the dose in January 2009 but with a much narrower 8-3 victory.
We went out separate ways until 2017/18 when we met again in London 1 South but the story was the same with Chichester winning 67-34 and 24-17.
We finally broke our duck at Oaklands in September 2018 winning 30-22 and completed the double witha 42-12 success just before Christmas.
Once again, we went into different divisions before returning to action in Regional 2 South Central last season, winning at Water Lane 30-7 before going down 12-18 in an interesting fixture in March 2024!
