Men’s 1st XV v Eastbourne 20/02/2010

Home – London 2 South East

Report by Andy Ward

Won 33-10

Well, I waited quite some time before I penned anything. Firstly, I’d had some flak from people regarding the reports, so asked for volunteers to do it instead. Volunteers were there none – so, perhaps it was just a case of moaning because the pen is mightier than the sword!

But, if anyone does wish to do the match reports, then they are more than welcome to contribute – and indeed not just for the first XV. I spend a lot of my time doing these things, recording the score, visiting the games and I believe – please correct me if I’m wrong – but I’m the ONLY person in the Club to have attended every single first XV game for the last four years. And, I include players, coaches and management in that comparison. So, if you want the job – be prepared to put in the hard yards.

Secondly, after witnessing the display, I was struggling to find the words to adequately describe the game. And I wasn’t looking for any synonyms of the word “good”.

So, for the minute, let’s stick to facts.The front row, without Stoffy who bust an ankle at Judds and with Paul coming back from an op on his knee had Bevan and Josh. Within 10 minutes Bevan had to go off as well with an injury to his shoulder.

Towards the end of the first half, Paul Cox was injured and had to go off. Late in the second half, Ben Coulson had to go off (after having been injured the week before) and Ben Sole came on. Now, all credit to Ben Sole – but does that not tell us something about strength in depth. All credit to Ben Coulson as well – but should he have been playing? I’m glad he was, but that was a nasty bang at Judds.

More facts. Eastbourne scored a converted try and a penalty in the first half. They also missed two penalties. Hove managed an unconverted try in the last minute of the half in perhaps fortuitous circumstances. Oops – didn’t stick to facts then!

So, the team at home, the team seeking promotion, the team at second in the table, the team that had only lost twice in the league to rampant leaders Judds had five points and the team that were away, the team that have lost every game this season, the team that had been written off as cannon fodder had ten points.

The second half was better from a score perspective. Hove scored four unanswered tries – although the visitors missed two penalties and had their six sin binned. But 28-0 for the half was a good return and one that would have been expected for both halves.

I’ll restrict myself to saying that we had a bad day at the office and got a get out of jail card. But that is not promotion form and if that is all we can do then we would be better off not going up until we can perform better. Let’s hope the next games are more fruitful and that we give a better performance.