Eastbourne Blown Away by Boars

A strong Boars team travelled to a windy Eastbourne and came away with the win needed to stay top of the league and keep the Heathfield & Waldron club’s hopes of 4 trophies in the season alive. The Boars opted to play into the strong wind in the first half and hoped that their defence would hold out. For long periods Eastbourne pinned the Boars back behind their 22 metre line without finding a way through stout defence. After 20 minutes a Boars error was pounced on and Eastbourne ran in an unconverted try. This seemed to spur the Boars on and on a rare foray into the Eastbourne half Brady Burdett called a move that saw centres Hesketh and Wates take defenders away with decoy runs allowing Burdett to sprint in and score a try that Rhodes did well to convert.

KFC takes another ball at the lineout [someone told him it was edible!]

Just before half time the Boars scored a second try when the slimmed down centre Julian Wates cut through 3 tackles to round off a bout of hard work by the forwards. The teams turned round at half time with the score at 5-12 in the Boars favour.

It was clear that Eastbourne would need to replicate the Boars tactics and play a forward dominated game if they were to have any chance of winning. This they attempted but the Boars forwards have become battle hardened and tackled well to deny Eastbourne any significant progress. There was no more scoring for the first 15 minutes and it took a bit of clever play by scrum half Dave Rhodes to break the stalemate. Rhodes was first to his own kick through and gained the try that seemed to settle the match in the Boars favour.

Gilly crashes through the defence...

Eastbourne never gave up but seemed to tire and the Boars were able to add fresh legs without reducing the level of skill available. This led to a flurry of tries in the last 20 minutes of the match with Dave Cook producing a trademark burst to score followed by Burdett adding his second and young Sam Barrow scoring twice. Barrows second was a thing of beauty with him breaking tackles on the halfway line and dummying the fullback before scoring under the posts.

"Twinckle Toes" storms off down the wing again...

This rounded off an excellent display and set up a chance for the Boars to win the league title at home on the 29th March in their next match against Hastings and Bexhill 3’s.

Jono makes another tackle on his way to Man of the match...

Man of the Match was Jono Sharp for a winning 4 scrums against the head and for excellent work around the pitch.

Boars Team – M. MacLeod, J. Sharp, A. Sutton (J. Geesin – 65), P. Hookway (S. Barrow – 45), T. Rose (D. Bird – 65) , W. Visser, K. Lewis (I. Schleider – 20), D. Cook, D. Rhodes, B. Burdett, D. Hesketh, J. Wates, S. Hollingdale, A. Farrell, M. Brown (G. Woods - 50)

Match report by Mike MacLeod

3/8/2008 12:38:27 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)