Men’s 1st XV v Crowborough 26/01/2008

Home – London 4 South East

Report by Andy Ward

Won 36-20

The normal adage used by inane soccer reporters is “it was a game of 2 halves” – well, results wise, this was, but if we were to take other items into consideration – possession, territory – then a more correct fractional representation would be a game of 4 quarters!The spectators were a little late being released from luncheon (very nice!) and the players were almost ready for kick off as your scribe was adjusting his new and very smart headgear (unphased by the cat calls and derision from nearby people who clearly had no sense of fashion!).

Your warm eared and eye shielded scribe was just about to sharpen his pencil when Matt Sole burst from the pack on around the half way line and sprinted forward dodging and dancing round static Crowborough players like a pinball on speed. Approaching the line like the new Eurostar service Matt slipped the ball to his right to a rampaging Barry Young who applied the coup de grace placing the ball over the line for an excellent try.

The electronic clock looming large over the scoreboard – which now indicated 5-0 – testified that just 1 minute and 20 seconds had elapsed since referee Bowers had blown his whistle. Up stepped Dan Penney, positioned right on the north touchline and calmly slotted the ball over for a further 2 points in the Hove locker. The clock now attested that the first half was a mere 2 minutes and 10 seconds of age and already Hove were 7-0 clear.

Before the half had reached 6 minutes, then Hove were even further ahead. A scrum was set and Hove won the ball which was released to flying wing Barry Young who shot off up the pitch sticking to his running line like glue. A quick offload to full back Alex Robertson in hot pursuit, saw Alex go over for the first of his eventual 3 tries in the game. 12-0 to the hosts but sadly Dan could not reprise his earlier effort as the conversion just missed the post by a whisker.

Hove had some decent play but did not score any further points until the 29th minute, but – remember the 4 quarters – it was now Crowborough’s turn to take control of the game. Possibly Hove thought that the hard yards had been run and they only needed to sit back to idle away the remaining 74 minutes of the game! Crowborough, however, had other ideas on this. A slight moan now for Crowborough – if you want me to ever log who scored then you will HAVE to make the shirt numbers BIGGER!!!. An unidentifiable Crowborough player passed to another unidentifiable Crowborough player who then (you guessed it!) passed to yet another unidentifiable Crowborough player – who scored a try!

I did spot that the kicker was wearing number 11 but unfortunately, Crowborough sent their team sheet along with no numbers (do they have a thing about numbers?) and thus my program was unable to shed any further light on the identity of anyone from the frozen Sussex/Kent boarders! Oh, by the way – number 11 missed his opportunity for 2 points.

Anyway, back to the game which was shaping up nicely now and again it was Crowborough taking the game to Hove and they scored a further try in the 25th minute (UCP) with number 11 failing again with his kick. The score was now 12-10 and Crowborough had all but plugged the gap. Still, you will recall that I did state that Hove scored in the 29th minute – and, indeed they did. Young Alex (Spearmint) Robertson was fed the ball coming in through a gap and touched down to take the score to 17-10 in Hove’s favour.

This brief interlude into Crowborough’s superiority in this piece of the game was short lived as Crowborough scored from a penalty kick (number 11) and then a further UCP scored a try which was converted by number 11.

The score was now 17-20 in Crowborough’s favour as the half time whistle blew and the concerned and puzzled looks over the faces of the Hove coaches suggested that they were not really expecting to go in at half time being down!

As ever, the second half duly followed the first and referee Bowers – in time honoured fashion – completed this task with a shrill blast of his whistle and a jaunty swing of the arm. Nice style! Now, even though Hove had all the scoring in the second half, it was not in any way one sided.

Crowborough threatened many a time and quite possibly has more possession and territory! Still, Hove scored to retake the lead in the 51st minute when young Alex (Rhino) Robertson scored his third try of the day (much to Sandy’s delight but his wallet’s fright). 22-20 flashed the neon of the scoreboard and Hove collectively breathed the tiniest sigh of relief.

Having been in second place for the last 14 playing minutes punctuated by the half time break, they were relieved to get their noses in front. It now seemed as though Dan had adjusted his boots and the attempts so narrowly missed in the first half were corrected by an adjustment to the protractor of his right boot and the ball duly obliged by going where required resulting in the 2 bonus points taking the score to 24-20.

Eight minutes later, Hove pushed again and the ball went out to Alex Probyn on the wing who squeezed over in the corner despite the attention of the Crowborough defence. Straight between the sticks but high above the bar was the next destination for the ball as the swinging boot of Dan Penney dispatched it to atone for earlier misses. No mistake this time and the score from the Las Vegas lights of the scoreboard duly informed the watching throng that Hove were now 31 points to 20 clear over their rivals.

Crowborough now took their turn to pressure Hove and were rewarded with plenty of territory and possession. In the 71st minute, Hove prop Brian Spring was awarded a yellow card for his services in the front row – and with an ironic twist of temporal nastiness it was at that precise moment that his family arrived to watch him perform in the game. Sadly, that was going to be his last contribution to the afternoon’s entertainment.With the Blackpool Illuminations known locally as Hove’s scoreboard showing that added time was being played, the master blaster known as Adam Phillips (yet to shine today) saved his efforts for the last throw of the game.

Quite possibly suffering from his birthday celebrations of the day before (Happy Birthday Ads) he woke up with the ball in his hand and spotted – as only he seems to – a gap somewhere between the 20+ players in front of him. With customary elfin glint in his eye and grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire cat, he plotted his precise course between the packed ranks of defenders and crossed the line in the corner, then cheekily snaked through a further 2 defenders to gain position closer to the posts. Sadly, Dan couldn’t quite get the ball over and so it finished with a score in Hove’s favour of 36-20.

Next week is a week off for Hove, with Hastings and Bexhill (Away) to follow.