Sussex Rugby - Heathfield & Waldron RFC - Heathfield Boars 34 Crowborough 3rd's 12

	Saturday, October 14, 2006

Heathfield Boars 34 Crowborough 3rd's 12

The Boars went into this match with a team much altered from the previous two weeks but with confidence high. The Boars are trying to increase the numbers of players available and this seems to be working as 22 players assembled including 3 trialists in John Parsons, Gavin Robinson and Rob Such. John Parsons confessed to having been a Crowborough player in the past but the Boars promised to protect him.

Another sun splashed kick-off saw Heathfield start well and begin to dominate the scrums and at the breakdown. The lineouts were another matter due to an inconsistent delivery by Heathfield and excellent jumping by the Crowborough number 7.

This platform led to four unanswered first half Heathfield tries. The first well taken by Brady Burdett who went right, Hesketh offered an option inside and Mike Barber another outside and as happened so often in the past Burdett sold the dummy and went straight through the middle.

Heathfield’s next try was made in the forwards. At a scrum 15 metres out stalwart props MacLeod and Geesin provided the platform for number 8 Ben Taylor to drive off the base of the scrum and beat the covering defence to score. Lewis converted to take the score to 12-0. The third try was a solo effort from Mike Barber as he burst past his opposite number around the 22 metre line and ran through the Crowborough full back to score. Lewis also converted this to take the score to 19-0.

The final try of the half was vintage Burdett as a flamboyant Brady sold 3 dummies, one after another as he virtually ambled through the midfield. His fellow Boars take plenty of credit for offering the options that allowed him to circumnavigate the Crows defence.

So the whistle blew for half time with the score at 24-0 and the Boars seemed to relax and consider the match won. Not so! Crowborough came out full of fight and for 20 minutes dominated the match in all phases scoring two tries in the process and converting one of these. At 24-12 there was a palpable nervousness about the Boars as they fended off several bouts of Crowborough pressure.

Then the pendulum swung back towards Heathfield. The Boars scrum started to function again as debutant prop (ex hooker) Andy Sutton found the measure of his opposite number. This platform helped calmed the nerves and these were banished after a flowing move led to a try. The Boars scrum pushed Crowborough off their own ball and passed left through hands to debutant centre Rob Such. Such thought about going for glory himself but sensibly drew the tackle and offloaded to winger Simon Hollingdale who went over to score. The final score of the match came when Burdett drew the Crowborough defence too him and actually passed (rather than dummied) to a triumphant Mike Barber who had a relatively simple task of sprinting 10 metres to score.

Man of the match for the Boars was close between Mike Barber, Brady Burdett and Tony Rose. The award went to Mike Barber as it was his first game for the team this season. Barber also won the ‘drink off’ when the Crowborough man of the match showed he was Jelly by name and jelly by nature when he baulked at the pickled egg.

Boars Team – Mike MacLeod, Jason La Roche, Joe Geesin (Andy Sutton – 50), John Parsons, Tony Rose, Simon Walker (Ben O’Neil -50), Kenny Lewis, Ben Taylor (Gavin Robinson – 60), Dick Chapman, Brady Burdett, Duncan Hesketh (Adam Farrrell – 50), Mike Barber, Simon Hollingdale, Keith Davies (Rob Such -40), Dave Rhodes, Unused Subs -Paul Hookway, Guy Ellery.

Report by Mike MacLeod

The Boars
10/14/2006 10:47:57 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

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