Men’s 1st XV v Beccehamian 10/11/2007

Home – London 4 South East

Report by Andy Ward

Won 30-27

A match of two halves! Hove comfortably led at the interval by 30 points to 5 after playing some good rugby and looked set to win by an easy margin. However, the second half belonged to Beccahamians who scored 22 points to nil in the second half to make the match far to close for comfort at 30-27, but enough to leave Hove still in second place in London SE4.

The match started brightly enough for Hove with centre Lee Preston going over for tries in the 2nd, 15th and 21st minutes all unconverted, but punctuated by an unconverted try for the visitors in the 10th minute.

A penalty by Alex Robertson in the 23rd minute gave Hove hope that the kicking boots had been found, but sadly this was not the case as Ben Sole ran over an unconverted in the 30th minute. Ryan Morlen got in on the act with a try in the 33rd minute which Alex converted to make the score 30-5 and this proved to be Hove’s last score of the game.

Beccahamians started the second half where Hove finished the first with an unconverted try in the 45th minute, followed by a converted try in the 60th minute. Hove supporters began to look concerned as their comfortable 25 point half time lead was steadily being eroded and now stood at a mere 13 points.

This was further eroded in the 68th and 75th minutes as Beccs scored 2 further unconverted tries to take the score to 30-27 – a nerve tangling 3 points between the teams. What seemed like an eternity was left as there had been three injuries to wing Luke Longcroft (knee) as Beccs scored their first half try; Kieron Loens towards the end of the first half (ankle) and to Paul Smith (suspected broken leg) in the middle of the second half.

Beccs had sensed that an unlikely victory may be there for the taking but transgressed after the referee had indicated time. Ryan Morlen realising that the game was over kicked the resultant penalty straight into touch and was rewarded by hearing the shrill blast of the referee’s whistle to indicate that Hove had managed to hang on to the 2 points for the win.

Hove now nervously await the roll call of the injured with 4 players unavailable for the Beccs game and now a further 3 injured and many of the team suffering from niggling injuries. Next week is the cup and so this may be the opportunity to give some players a rest and blood those pushing for their place.