Men’s 1st XV v Brighton 05/04/2008

Away – John Shelton Trophy (Friendly)

Report by Andy Ward

Lost 23-31

Well, the score doesn’t lie and Hove somehow managed to contrive to lose the latest Shelton Trophy game between the old adversaries – but before we go into a flurry of statistics, lets pause and build up to the game.

Well, this weekend was touted by all and sundry as the biggest gambling weekend of the year – with the Grand National, The FA Cup Semi Finals, the Grand Prix – and most importantly of all the Shelton Trophy. Bookies across the land would either run home crying or be whooping for joy! Well, the stories are mostly all known now. With 7-1 joint favourite Comply or Die winning the National, the bookies got a right pounding. With Portsmouth beating West Brom, the favourites again won.

Oh – but joy at last for the poor layers of bets. Favourites Hove lost to Brighton so no doubt trillions of pounds were recouped on the day. God bless the bookies – I hear you all shout as one voice…

Anyway, back to the main thrust of this nonsense. I arrived at Headquarters firmly believing that a coach was to be provided to take us to north of the bypass – but alas and alack no such arrangement had been made. Memo to bitch at someone. Then we find those round ball idiots had decided to play Port Vale at home and thus Mill Hill was shut. So a rather round the houses trip to enter at the bottom of the road to get to Waterhall was required.Then the final stages of the journey to the Clubhouse was marred as the taxi kept grounding on the speed bumps – probably due to the fact that the Short Fat Irish person was weighing the car down with the 117 pints of Carling that he had consumed before we left the hallows of Hove.

Arriving in time to organise some further refreshment, SFI marched purposefully into the Club whilst Hon Sec did the rather more social act of speaking to people not seen for a few months. It was good to see Jake, Sooty, Spanners and Kenny – almost a Robin Hood reunion!

Well, the game started with a fairly unrecognisable Hove team – down to injuries and also an unerring ability of Hove to shoot themselves in the foot when more diplomatic behaviour might have worked wonders! Still, we are where we are. After 7 minutes, Brighton scored their first converted try of the afternoon and were good value for it. Hove responded in the 15th with a penalty taken by number 10 Alex Pell-Stevens up from the twos for the match today. Frustratingly, the game seemed to be played mainly in the Hove half of the pitch and there was a lack of ideas as to how to move the ball up the field. Still, after a further 12 minutes we managed this and Ryan Morlen scored a decent try (unconverted) to take the score to Hove 8, Brighton 7.

For a mere 8 minutes of the game Hove led the proceedings and then a further unconverted try by Brighton saw them retake the ascendancy in the 35th minute. Hove then had a collective off moment and Brighton exposed this scoring a try under the posts for an easy conversion in the 38th minute seeing the game roll into the half time break with Hove on 8 points to Brighton’s far more impressive 19.

The second half started and Hove really should have made much more of the opportunities with the Brighton Hooker receiving a yellow in the 44th minute and the Brighton 7 getting the same result from the referee three minutes later. So for 7 minutes Hove only had 13 opponents and for 13 minutes only had 14.

So, what could we do with that numeric advantage? Well, bugger all actually! Which is a rather sad reflection.In the 55th minute, Charlie Brock was first to the ball and scored a good try for Hove in the far corner (your correspondent had not moved from the balcony so as to allow SFI to be able to gulp down his Fosters at a rather alarming rate!). The try was unfortunately not converted and so the score remained at Hove 13, Brighton 19. Could Hove begin to pull back? Well, five minutes on, Brighton scored a further converted try and put the tally to 13-26 and then the see saw began again with Alex Probyn scoring a try for Hove to take it to 18-26.

Coming into the final straight and over Beechers for the last time (aka the last 10 minutes) Brighton scored a further converted try and were looking good value for their lead and the win. But, the fat lady had not quite spit her gargle out as Paddy (Nick Padenburg) kicked a speculative ball upfield and began the chase. It looked like he had give the kick too much welly as it sped for the goal line and bounced awkwardly. The Brighton defender was concentrating all eyes on the ball to try and shepherd it into touch and thus did not see the advancing Paddy hurtling towards him like a dog on viagra with a bitch on heat in his sights.

DIVE went Paddy as he hurled himself with not a jot of fear for personal safety and an outstretched hand slammed the ball down for a final five points to Hove and the absolute horror of the Brighton defender. Shouts of Eeyore echoed from the Hove contingent to add embarrassment to his discomfort. And so the game finished with the final score at 23 to Hove and 31 to Brighton. Thankfully, no-one was hospitalised this time and the game was played in pretty good spirit – so a thanks go to both teams for entertaining us this afternoon.