Sussex Rugby - Heathfield & Waldron RFC - Hellingly 1st XV 10 Heathfield & Waldron 1st XV 22

	Saturday, March 04, 2006

Hellingly 1st XV 10 Heathfield & Waldron 1st XV 22

One of those games in which despite a lot of things being done very well, it will be remembered more for the numerous handling errors and silly mistakes.

Let me say first, Heathfield 1^st XV continue to improve game by game. The overall pattern of play, the organisation, communication and the technical execution is far and away improved upon since the early part of the season.

Typically Hellingly were going to make us work hard for our win; a dogged display from them on a soft sticky pitch it was always going to turn out harder than it should. From the kick-off Heathfield looked the better team and within minutes a series of won phases ended with the backs moving the ball wide only for one of Hellingly’s defenders to intercept our final pass and race away to our own 22 before being tackled. From the resulting play Hellingly managed to run in for a try totally against the run of play in the opening minutes. They missed with the conversion, score 5 – 0.

Our line out display was greatly improved and returning Captain, Rob Streeter was superb in this area, securing our own ball and often pinching theirs too providing a much improved foundation for creating a platform from which to launch attacks. It wasn’t long before the ever-marauding Bruce Pestell got the equalising touch down from a series of forward drives close to the opposition line. Bryn Jones converted, score 5 – 7.

Despite the better supply of ball, the backs had one of those days! Despite continuing to improve by running some very exciting lines at great pace, the actual handling let us down. On any other day the chances being created would have cut even better opposition apart. Before half-time, however, Heathfield managed a further two tries as a result of some well organised and dogged phase play by our forwards providing some good ball for the backs to carry on. First Damian Pestell burst a couple of tackles on a great line to score left of the posts and not long afterwards the ever-green Levi Willis got himself involved in some close forward driving before finishing with the try. Neither of these two scores were converted leaving the tally at half time 5 – 17.

The message at half time was to up the tempo but take more care in securing the ball, look to clean up round the fringes more and take our chances more clinically.

The second half was much the same as the first. We won a fairly decent supply of ball and our backs launched numerous fast and creative attacks but our overall handling didn’t improve resulting in a frustrating afternoon. Hellingly to their credit, continued to cause us difficulties often managing to spoil some of our good possession and put us under some enormous pressure in our own 22 for long periods of the second half. Our defence was hard and well organised though some tired legs led to some missed first up tackles which eventually allowed Hellingly to score fairly wide out on the right. Again the conversion missed leaving the score at 10 – 17.

This was a rallying call that Heathfield needed at this point of the game. The tempo increased visibly and we began to reverse the pressure spending longer periods in the opposition half.

Close to this point we lost the ever- improving Joe Riley at full back with a nasty looking broken nose. Barry Slay came off the bench to have a fine last fifteen minutes as did Jim Cummings who also joined the fray at this point with Rory Burchett having to leave the field. With about ten minutes to go, Kobe Tonkin finished off some good handling by forwards and backs to score wide on the left. With the conversion again being missed the score was now 10 – 22 and remained so until the end.

Both teams continued to battle it out for the last few minutes and there were some very tired legs from the heavy ground. Credit to both sides who gave it their all on a difficult pitch but played the game in a great spirit.

My thanks and appreciation to Jamie Marchant who happily took his place on the bench this week and remained positive and supportive all day despite not getting on.

I am confident that as we move through the season, we are improving all the time. If we can continue to get winning results even if on days like this one where areas of the game didn’t go well then it looks good for the future. We are playing a different more exciting style but it takes time to develop. I am delighted with the attitude of the players who are starting to develop a strong squad attitude and spirit which will make us even harder to beat.

Congratulations to Lewis Marshall who had a superb game and very deservedly got voted Man of the Match.

On behalf of the team, I pass on our sincerest best wishes to Mike de St. Croix, hoping he makes a very speedy and full recovery to good health. Mike we miss your cheery face being around doing the things you do not least of which is writing these match reports!

Heathfield Squad: Burchett, C Jones, Marshall, Evans, Streeter, B Pestell, Pritchard, Tonkin, Walker, B Jones, Bayley, D Pestell, Hole, Willis, Riley, Cumming, Marchant, Slay

Report by: Dave Jones

1st XV | Latest News
3/4/2006 12:18:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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