Sussex Rugby - Heathfield & Waldron RFC - Heathfield Boars 12 vs Barns Green 10

	Saturday, September 09, 2006

Heathfield Boars 12 vs Barns Green 10

The Boars Are Back!

The first game of the season is always interesting. Who will turn up after the long hot summer? Will it be the same fat old gits who left at the end of last season or a collection of finely tuned athletes?

A mixture of both pulled on a motley collection of shirts (note to self - must organise the new strip earlier next year!) to take on Barns Green. Several well informed spectators pointed out that the Boars stand off and 2 centres weighed more than the Boars front row.

BG were very close runners up to Haywards Heath 4’s in a competitive Sussex Division 3 Central and were deemed ‘tough opponents’ for the Boars opening match. From the kick off the Heathfield pack were left in no doubt about the task as captain Kenny Lewis was isolated and lost the ball and the ref saw Mike MacLeod’s illegal attempt to re-gather the ball. The resulting penalty led to a period of sustained pressure on the Boars line. It was successfully repelled by some hard tackling and good relieving kicks from Brady Burdett.

After weathering this spell of pressure Heathfield began to show some flashes of adventure and felt that their strengths lay in running the BG pack around the field and attacking through the backs. This seemed to go well until a relieving kick from BG led to a penalty about 15 metres from the Boars line and the defence went to sleep and a big BG forward was allowed time to get some speed up and was only stopped once over the line. Much debate surrounded the grounding of the ball but the ref’s decision is final. Importantly BG missed the conversion.

Stunned by this the Boars needed a lift and they got it through some good vision, a lucky bounce and excellent chasing play. Brady Burdett had the vision to see a huge gap behind the BG right winger, the lucky bounce(s) took the ball to 1 metre and the good chasing came from Chris Jaques (who hit the full back hard enough to knock the ball out of his hands) and Guy Ellery (as fit a 45+ years old as you’ll see, or is his reading of the game that much better?) who pounced on the loose ball to score in the corner. Kenny Lewis missed the very difficult attempt at goal. The rest of the half was very hard fought (with Mike Brown, Kenny Lewis and Tony Rose outstanding in the loose) but scoreless.

Several changes were made at half time and these helped stabilise the Boars scrum which improved the ball for the backs. Among these substitutions was Julian Wates who responded well to his greeting from the referee (“Are you sure you will be OK in the backs!” see earlier comments about Boars centres and front row) with a trademark tackle which left an opposing centre on the deck and substituted shortly afterwards.

The game continued to be hard and keenly contested with an enjoyable ebb and flow of territory (a feature preferred more by the backs and spectators that the panting forwards). On a Heathfield foray into the BG half a bal was well won about 25 metres out from the posts and spun wide to Mike Jaques who sprinted past two despairing tackles to cross in the corner. Vitally he kept his composure and managed to ground the ball 15 metres closer to the posts. This allowed Dave Rhodes to kick the conversion and to give the Boars a lead at 12-5.

BG did not change at all after that and came back hard and strong and forced Heathfield back. The Boars were indebted to Mike Jaques again when BG had a clear 3-1 overlap and he twice managed to force the pass before contact and bundled the third player into touch.

The Boars forwards were clearly tiring and the continuous tackling (and running about on the big pitch!) took its toll when BG rounded off a spell of forward pressure with a rolling maul that gained the final 5 metres to score. With 15 minutes remaining the BG conversion kick might prove important and Boars spirits were lifted when the kick went just wide.

The Boars worked hard to defend their slender lead and a relieved team made it to the final whistle and a well deserved drink in the bar. Beer does taste better after a victory. That is unless it has a pickled egg in it which is what ‘man of the match’ Brady Burdett had to face in the post match ‘drink off’. Sadly the Boars lost that contest, perhaps future ‘man of the match’ awards might have to go to the faster eaters?

Boars Team – Mike MacLeod, Andy Sutton (Jason La Roche – 40), Steve Lester (Joe Geesin – 40), Simon Walker (Nick Evans – 40), Tony Rose, Ben Taylor (Anthony Manion – 60), Kenny Lewis (Jono Sharp – 40, Mike Brown (Matt Bernhauser - 60), Dave Rhodes, Brady Burdett, Duncan Hesketh, Adam Farrrell (Julian Wates - 35), Simon Hollingsdale, Chris Jaques (Mike Jaques – 40), Guy Ellery.

Report by: Mike MacLeod

The Boars
9/9/2006 8:51:00 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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