Sussex Rugby - Heathfield & Waldron RFC - Heathfield Boars 39 Crowborough 3rd's 7

	Saturday, January 28, 2006

Heathfield Boars 39 Crowborough 3rd's 7

What a difference an '8' makes!

A frozen pitch at Crowborough saw the fixture moved to the Waldron pitch so Heathfield felt more at home than usual for an away game. The usual random assortment of players found themselves in a Boars shirt and it looked as if it would be another ragtag performance when the Crowborough no. 10 dummied Brady Burdett and ran 25 metres to score between the posts for an easily converted try.

However the Heathfield forwards started to dominate their opponents in the set pieces and win ball in the loose. Much was owed to an excellent performance from the back row in particular Tom Faulkner-Bryant at number 8. It took 20 minutes and a few close shaves before this domination was turned into points; but it was worth the wait. The forwards won decent ball around half way, Ben Taylor spun a pass to Burdett who passed to Evans, looped round for the return ball and in so doing created a few extra yards for winger Nick Sands to dash 40 metres and score in the top corner.

This reverse seemed to undermine Crowborough's confidence and must have contributed when born again centre Tim Evans took a ball on the halfway line and burst through some poor defensive tackles to score between the posts. Crowborough continued to work hard and tried to provide a platform for their dangerous looking backs but the Heathfield forwards hard work meant that any ball won was slow or scrappy.

Tom Faulkner-Bryant started to boss proceedings from number 8 and began to pick up and charge from the base of the dominant Heathfield scrummage. On one such instance he showed good strength to go over from 5 metre out for a nicely worked 'blind side' try. He also scored from 15 metres when he took a quick tapped penalty and carried at least two tacklers across the line with him. The half closed with Heathfield very happy to be leading 24-7

The second half was a continuation of the first with Heathfield dominant in the forwards and comfortable in the backs. 3 more tries ensued when Tim Evans bagged his second, Tom Faulkner Bryant his third and Jason La Roche scored his first of the season. The latter was the try of the match. Possession was won on halfway, thank you forwards, Burdett made a 10 metre break before passing to Evans who made another 10 metres before passing back to Burdett who drew the final defender and passed to hooker La Roche for the final 10 metre burst to the line. Nice hands and excellent support work gaining its reward.

A 39-7 win meant that Heathfield had several candidates for man of the match. Ben Taylor for a sound shift at scrum half, Kenny Lewis for his work rate and tackling and Brady Burdett for effectively spreading the play between backs and forwards. However 3 tries and an all round top performance saw Tom Faulkner-Bryant win his first MotM award of the season. The Boars could do with number 8 performances like this for the rest of the season.

Squad - R. Burchett, J. La Roche, S. Lester, P. Hookway, B. Ollie (C. North - 40), D. Wythe (A. Sutton - 35), K. Lewis (Capt) (L. Willis - 50), Tom Faulkner-Bryant, B. Taylor, B. Burdett, T. Evans, G. Ellery (M. MacLeod - 60), N. Sands, P. Fitzgerald (W. Harris - 40), J. Bailey

Report by: Mike MacLeod

The Boars
1/28/2006 7:24:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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