Ashford 13 Heathfield 15
Pictures by Roger Cuming
Heathfield scraped past Ashford in this Counties 1 Kent contest between the third and fourth in the league table. In a close contest the home side failures off the kicking tee were decisive. The outcome was in doubt until the last minutes and a draw would not have been a wrong result.
Heathfield had first use of a variable breeze although it changed during the game and was more directly across the pitch by half time.
Play was lacking in shape initially along with a good deal of ineffective kicking. This allowed Toby Simpson to collect kicks and make a couple of promising runs from deep. One of these led to good field position in the left hand corner and useful carries by Dion Comerford and Regan Law eventually saw Sam Crichton crash over near that corner.
From the restart Gus Taylor charged back upfield and the ball was carried on by Law and Jem MacVicker before Ashford scrambled the ball into touch 10 metres out. However Heathfield managed to lose the resulting lineout and Ashford cleared their lines.
Ashford were having a fair share of possession and started to build some pressure. A moderate kick out of defence by Heathfield reached their right winger who made a tasty run down the line beating a couple of tackles to collect a fine try. Crucially however he did not go under the posts and the home kicker pulled the conversion wide to tie the scores (5-5).
Soon Ashford again built a promising position in the right hand corner, partly due to penalties, but the Heathfield scrummage was starting to function better and combined with Ben Irwin ruining his young opposite number’s day the threat was soon nullified. Irwin had a decent all round game and made numerous useful breaks as well as often disrupting the opposition possession.
Neither side will have felt confident at half time although MacVicker will obviously have been spurred on by seeing his father joining the huddle at that point.
Heathfield started the second half well with Harry Reilly finding useful touch in the home 22 and good pressure in midfield resulted in a straightforward penalty chance, duly accepted by Simpson. In a tight game this was a critical score. Reilly was also noted with some useful tackling.
A few minutes later another Reilly kick set up good position and after several phases quick hands gave Simpson enough space for him to finish well - and then convert his own try.
Ashford immediately surged back up the other end and indeed much of the rest of the game was spent in the Heathfield half. Generally the Heathfield defence emerged from this test well with Dan Bird and Archie Adam just two of those specially mentioned for some hard work in defence.
The home loose head now had to retire following a knock to the head while Bird was replaced by George Hayter.
Continuing Ashford pressure resulted in a yellow for MacVicker which was unsurprising given the rising penalty count. However the home team were unable to exploit the extra man thanks to some stout defensive work. At one point a try looked inevitable but somehow the ball was held up.
With about ten minutes remaining Ashford did cut the lead with a simple penalty chance and they continued to have much pf the play. Heathfield did have one big break out and Simpson looked to be making a useful run down the left flank but his likely scoring pass was neatly intercepted. Somehow Heathfield regrouped and the cover defence just contained the threat.
However Ashford tails were up and they soon scored a deserved try with good handling through several phases but again, and critically, the score levelling conversion went wide.
There was just time for one last Heathfield attack. Crichton made probably his best bullocking run on the day and good ball was worked wide left only for the final, and probably scoring, pass to Simpson to be called forward – not the first debatable decision on the day.
Ashford have a very similar team to Heathfield with plenty of useful young players mixed with some older, allegedly wiser, heads. On another day a couple of kicks would have produced a different result for them and both teams will probably finish near each other in the top half of the league table.
Head Coach Dave Cook picked out Dylan Eames for his all round performance in spite of his not being 100% following Covid last week.
Heathfield will need to step up their performance next week when near-neighbours Cranbrook come calling. Cranbrook are unbeaten in the league this year with some impressive results. Last year the home side won in the two equivalent fixtures between these old rivals. (22 Oct 3.00)