The Harriers collected an eleven try to one win over Eastbourne Ladies as their greater depth of players told against a team with mixed experience and ability including some relative newcomers to the game.
Conditions were excellent with a dry pitch just taking a stud on a mostly sunny day with a slight (albeit chilly) breeze.
Heathfield were in control from the start and indeed had majority possession throughout the game. Emily Bigwood opened the scoring on the end of some decent handling although she still had to work her way over the line.
Lauren Arthur then made the first of her multiple useful contributions with a good run which led to Sophie Williams boshing her way over.
At the end of the first quarter good scrum ball was worked through several phases before Ellie Wiseman claimed the next try. This was soon followed by skipper Kayleigh Honeyball making a stomping run of at least five yards in heavy traffic for the next. A few minutes later Honeyball collected her second on the day with a similar run from even further.
At 29-0 things were looking grim for Eastbourne but they now managed a decent attack on one of their rare pieces of possession and full back Emily Buss did well to evade several defenders on her way under the posts. The half was slightly truncated as an Eastbourne player then needed extended treatment before leaving the pitch.
Heathfield were dominating the scrum and turned over several Eastbourne lineouts at the front.
The second half started with a good team try as lineout ball was moved into midfield and after several phases Freya Gorringe worked her way over on the right hand side.
Tries came steadily thereafter for Clare Baker, Bigwood (2 more to make 3 on the day), Arthur and finally Beth Payne.
Eastbourne were under the cosh for much of the game and are to be congratulated on how they kept going on a tough day. It must be difficult trying to bring on new players in a competitive environment. Their coach picked out their scrum half Sophie Vening and Buss as noted above.
The game was sympathetically refereed by Tom Hall with remarkably few penalties although Heathfield did collect a few later on.
Heathfield were naturally pleased with the outcome and the overall performance with a low handling error count leading to good retention of possession. Among those the coaches picked out were Arthur, Gorringe, Baker and Bigwood. Heathfield benefit from their second team players training with the first team and are thus exposed to people with more experience and skill. This also eases the transition from first to second team.
Heathfield are still below Eastbourne in the league table because of an earlier deduction for a walkover in spite of having won more games. Next week they visit Cranleigh who have won the same number of games as Heathfield and who are even higher up the table. (29 Mar 2.00)