The match started fairly evenly with Heathfield electing to play into the wind in the first half. The Heathfield forwards just shaded the early period close quarter exchanges with good ruck ball won by Dean Pennell and Max Ellery allowing the back row to make good inroads into the Midhurst defence. Heathfield generally had the better of a bigger Midhurst pack during this period. Heathfield attempted to move the ball wide on a number of occasions but the big Midhurst inside centre was able to close down and kill most of these moves. It was from one of these breakdowns that Heathfield were able to quickly re-cycle the ball and quick hands enabled Henry Jolliffe to break clear. Further strong running by Jolliffe saw him beating 3 further tackles to score under the posts. Hugo Davies converted for a deserved 7 - 0 lead.

 
From the restart, Heathfield continued to pressure the Midhurst pack and a series of promising attacks were repelled by Midhurst defensive kicking using the wind well to clear thier lines. Heathfield's second try came from a Midhurst clearance kick that was fielded on the half-way line by Henry Jolliffe who was able to evade a number of Midhurst tackles to score his second in the corner. Midhurst countered almost immediately from the restart with the ball being recycled through thier big centre who managed to commit 4 Heathfield players to the tackle. This left Heathfield short of cover on the left where Midhurst's speedy winger was able to evade the first hurried tackle and then to outpace the covering defence to score in the corner. Half-time came with the game still in the balance at 12 - 5 to Heathfield.

Midhurst came out for the second half in barnstorming mood and took the game to Heathfield. The Midhurst pack started to exert greater pressure on Heathfield's forwards and started to gain better ball and more territory as a consequence. Heathfield's defence, outstandingly marshalled by Jasper Wrenn, Jamie Wardle and Greg Pearce, held out firmly until mid-way through the half when the big Midhurst centre, who had caused problems all match, managed to break a couple of tackles and score in the corner to set-up a final pulsating 10 minutes with the match in the balance at 12 - 10.

 
This score had a galvanising effect on the Heathfield forwards who raised thier game and managed to put together a passage of play involving multiple phases of good support from both backs and forwards. This led to a number of good breaks from both the backs and forwards culminating in a penalty on the Midhurst 10 metre line. Jasper Wrenn took a quick tap and was tackled early gaining his team a further 10 metres. He again took a tap and managed to evade and hand-off 4 Midhurst tacklers in an angled run into the Midhurst midfield taking him to 10 metres from the try-line. With the Midhurst defence committed to stopping him Wrenn cleverly popped the ball to centre Jack Koops who ran in to score taking the score to 17 - 10.

 
With 5 minutes to go, Heathfield appeared to ease off slightly allowing Midhurst's centre again to break free and score close to the posts. This try was converted leaving the score at a nailbiting 17 - 17 with 4 minutes to play. Again Heathfield came back at Midhurst with some good phased play forcing a number of Midhurst errors close to thier try-line. This pressure eventually led to Midhurst touching down behind thier own try line. From the ensuing 5 metre scrum, Heathfield managed to set up good phased possession and a sniping run by scrum half Hugo Davies saw him score next to the posts. Davies converted to leave a final score of 24 - 17 to Heathfield.

The forwards MoM was Jasper Wrenn with Hugo Davies taking the backs MoM award.

 
This was a highly entertaining and hard fought match which showed considerable skill in tricky conditions from both squads and maintains Heathfields unbeaten home record.

11/26/2007 12:01:37 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)