Sussex Rugby - Heathfield & Waldron RFC - Heathfield 1sts 22 Crawley 1sts 6

	Saturday, January 27, 2007

Heathfield 1sts 22 Crawley 1sts 6

Heath field continued their run of comfortable victories in a game which suffered from two front row injuries to the home side. The reorganisation involved prevented the Greenies from running in their usual flow of tries in the second half. Crawley, as anticipated, competed well up front but never gave any indication that they could match the fluency and skill of the home teams three quarters. Heathfield always looked the likely winners and duly completed a well earned double against Crawley.

After a positive start Heath field scored twice in the opening quarter. Koby Tonkin secured excellent lineout ball and scrum half Vokins passed to hooker Lawrence on the blind side who drove over the line with half the Crawley pack trying to stop him. Bryn Jones converted from the touchline and the greenies were into their stride. Within five minutes Heath field scored one of their now customary text book tries. They won a lineout on the Crawley 22, Vokins fed his fly half, and Bryn Jones ran a good line before feeding Damien Pestell who made a lovely inside break to score to the left of the posts. The conversion was missed but Heath field continued to play some thrilling rugby with Nick Cherry having a number of thrusting runs from full back. However Crawley defended stoutly and a few final passes from Heath went astray. Crawley hardly ever threatened but managed two penalties before half time to bring the score to 12-6 at the break.

From the kick off to start the second half the inspirational Heath field Hooker, Rob Lawrence, sustained a knee injury and had to leave the field .Heathfield`s front row sub Tom Pritchard moved from flanker to hooker. Lee Vokins moved to the back row, Nick Cherry to scrum half and Will Drinkwater to full back. These changes clearly affected the rhythm of Heath fields game although the eventual result of the match was never in any doubt.Crawley`s determined and physical pack tried to put their side back into contention but Heath field always had too much class and some excellent passing by Drink water and Cherry sent the skipper Jones over for a try wide out to make the score 17-6. At this point Jones closed down the game with some superb kicking which in effect guaranteed another victory for the Greenies.

Sadly Heathfield`s excellent young prop Andre Douglas had to go off with a rib injury with some twenty minutes remaining which resulted in uncontested scrums because the home side had already used their front row replacement. The Crawley forwards attempted to stage a recovery but in fact it was Heathfield`s outstanding player on the day, Damien Pestell, who ran onto a pass from Nick Cherry to close out the match with his second fine try.

For Heath field the whole side played with great heart and tackled splendidly. The back row was, as ever, outstanding in attack and defence and Nick Cherry proved what a talented player he is whether at scrum half or full back. This was not Heath field at their flowing best but it was nevertheless a good and hard earned victory.

Report by Mike de St Croix

1st XV
1/27/2007 11:59:49 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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