The teams agreed to play 3 x 20 minutes thirds to enable their large squads all to get rugby and Heathfield entertained a strong Chichester side for the first time on Sunday (at Waldron).

The game kicked off and soon the powerful Heathfield pack had the visitors under pressure keeping the ball for long periods with good rucking and driving play. New flanker Abbott recently joined the club from Tunbridge Wells and playing in his first game for his new club scored after only five minutes handing off powerfully and scoring under the posts. Burdett slotted the conversion. But Chichester then got back into the game through their powerful outside centre, who beat some very poor tackling and scored two tries within ten minutes to put Chichester ahead 7-10.  The home team pack then upped its efforts at scrum time and their tackling also improved with Iqbal, Lacey and van Rensburg, in the backs and back row Hollands and Platt putting in some good tackles. Chichester went close on two occasions but for try saving tackles by Scott and Phair, looked extremely promising.

It wasn’t until the last twenty minutes that Heathfield really cut lose. Sutton moved to inside centre and the pacey Hollands went to outside centre. This had an immediate affect - good driving play by Darcy set up a ruck and the ball was spun out by Chipchase to Burdett whose pop found Sutton screaming down the middle unstoppable. Burdett converted. More ball went down the line with Phair and Hollands combining well with Scott, before captain Matt Halls drove over to finish great team score. Good driving play again saw Sutton on the scissors hitting the line well. His drive was powered on by Platt and quick ball was sent down the backs, with flanker Salmon throwing a delightful miss pass to Phair who brilliantly stood his man up and went round him to score in the corner.

The final try was “out and out” speed and power. Once again the forwards created the platform with Bridges, Keylock and Hancock doing the “Donkey Work”. Quick ball down the backs gave Hollands all the space he needed and from the half way line, his change of direction was too much for the Chichester defence to cope with and he scored a truly blistering try. Burdett converted. Tackle of the day also went to Burdett who in typical “Greg Salmon” fashion dumped the Chichester forward backwards to round off a fine afternoons work.

Squad; Hancock, Hope, Keylock, Watkins, Darcy, Horsfall-Turner, Bridges, Tyler, Platt, Halls, Hollands, Salmon, Abbott, Chipchase, Marshall, Burdett, Evans, Phair, Van Rensburg, Scott, Iqbal, Sutton, May, Lacey

11/19/2006 7:59:49 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)