Colts win hard fought Cup encounter

Heathfield kicked off into a fairly strong breeze for thier first match (or training session!) since January 6th and tried to blow away the rustiness of the past few weeks.

The initial stages of the match had the usual probing for weakness from both sides but it was evident early on that the Heathfield pack were much stronger at the scrum and comfortably won thier linout ball. At the breakdown, the pack held thier own ball - again quite comfortably. However, the backs struggled to get any movement going and generally looked out of sorts.

After 10 minutes, some superb driving play and in particular offloading in the tackle saw the Heathfield forwards drive straight through the Chi defence to crash over the line. The ball was adjudged to be held up but this provided a strong attacking platform. Heathfield won the scrum and attacked blind twice with Harry Reilly looping and cutting back to score. Reilly missed with the conversion.

Chi then took a measure of control and used the wind effectively in conjunction with a raft of silly penalties from Heathfield, to apply pressure on the Heathfield line. Eventually, after 20 minutes and from a 5m lineout, Chi drove a maul well and easily rumbled over the line to score a well worked try that again went unconverted.

From the kickoff, Chi fumbled the catch, Heathfield regathered the loose ball and drove hard for the Chi line. A deft chip through forced Chi to concede a 5m lineout which Heathfield duly won and drove in a similar way to Chi's earlier score with Lewis Golding crashing through to score. Reilly converted this try using the wind well. That was a case of "anything you can do we can do better"!

Again play was largely a case of Heathfield giving away silly penalties and Chi kicking for territory using the wind and this eventually resulted in a penalty which Chi decided to kick for goal as half time loomed. Chi converted leaving the half time score at 12 - 8 to Heathfield.

Half-Time: Heathfield lead 12 - 8

The 2nd half was a hugely untidy affair with Heathfield dominating territory and posession with Reilly kicking for position, the forwards driving and mauling well and the backs unable to convert the possession into points. The scrum was a bit of a mess with something in the region of 15 resets in the half but it was an area of almost complete domination for Heathfield so the rest of the match was effectively controlled at the scrum. The front-five will know they had a rugby match and effectively won this for Heathfield.

This will be one of the very rare occasions where Heathfield failed to score any points in a half but this was essentially such a tight game that nothing could be taken for granted even with all the possession as Chi possessed some very quick backs who looked capable of scoring from anywhere given any posession.

So the match ended much as the half was played, with a collapsed scrum being reset and won and the ball cleared.

Full-Time: Heathfield win 12 - 8

PS: Apologies to those players who didn't get a chance in this match. It was noted and reparation will be made in the next few matches.
PPS: Jasper Wrenn successfully managed 30 minutes after an 18 month lay-off recovering from a cruciate injury.
PPPS: Jack Koops managed 20 minutes back from his horrific looking knee injury.

Team: Golding, Borg, Ellery, Ross, Smith, Flett, Brown, Cramp, Burdett, Reilly, Sills, O'Conor, Diplock, Lloyd, Jolliffe, Davies, Wrenn, Parsons, Jones, Koops.