Men’s 1st XV v Crowborough 03/11/2007

Away – London 4 South East

Report by Andy Ward

Drawn 15-15

Crowborough entertained Hove in London SE4 league match on 4th November and the final score turned out to be a rare draw at 15-15.

Crowborough took the lead on 20 minutes with an unconverted try and there were no more scores until just prior to half time when Hove scored a penalty courtesy of Alex Robertson. The second half kicked off and almost immediately, Crowborough cancelled Hove’s score by getting a penalty of their own to take the score to 8-3 in favour of the home side.

Five minutes later, Alex Robertson was fed the ball on the right touchline and managed to evade the defence to score a try in the corner. The conversion attempt was unsuccessful and so at 46 minutes into the game, the score was tied at 8-8.

Around the 55th minute, Crowborough scored a converted try after good pressure on the Hove line and were looking likely winners at 15-8 to the good. Hove tried many a time to get a move going but a combination of bad handling and an inability to win any line out ball conspired against them.

However, in the 77th minute, Ryan Morlen received the ball and managed to evade the defence scoring under the posts to take the score to 15-13. There was only enough time left for Alex to convert and the Hove spectators who had made the journey to the frozen north (of Sussex) waited with bated breath.The Crowborough players ran out hands aloft to try and stop the ball going over – but go over it did, and the scores were tied.

A final kick off and as soon as the ball went dead then the game was over.

On balance, perhaps it was a fair result, but Hove need to be much more convincing if they are to entertain thoughts of promotion this season.