Courtesy Hastings Observer 1/1/10 Match Report follows

H&B target bright start to new year

Hastings & Bexhill captain Roger Roberts believes the unusually early start to the new year has worked in their favour.

The rugby club will return to London Three South East action tomorrow (Saturday) with a rearranged game at home to Brighton.

Roberts, who continues his recovery from shoulder surgery, said: "I don't think I've ever had it this early before, but then the weather's been quite bad.

"Personally I'm happy to play it now (rather than later in the season). It's hard for us to get going for January 2, but hopefully it's just as hard for Brighton.

"I think it's worked out quite well for us. We've got quite a few people available, and they've got to get themselves together and travel away."

The H&B players had last week off, but were due to resume training on Wednesday evening in readiness for a game originally postponed on Saturday November 14th due to a waterlogged pitch.

H&B are third-from-bottom of the standings having lost eight of their 10 league outings to date, while Brighton are in fourth place with seven wins out of 10.

Roberts continued: "These are the sort of games where we're probably not favourites, but we're in with a shout and if we can start nicking points of these teams that's what going to save us."

H&B haven't played Brighton - last season's National EDF Energy Junior Vase champions - in a league match for a number of years.

"I'm definitely expecting a physical game which I think our boys will like," said Roberts. "A couple of people have watched a couple of their games and they rely on a bullying tactic.

"When their heads are up they play very good rugby, but if people get the better of them in the breakdown they tend to drop their heads.

"If I'm honest we've struggled with that part of the game, but they're slowly beginning to man up and it's dawned on them that's what they've got to do."

H&B are hopeful that Richard Brooks, Kit Claughton and Tom Spatchurst will be fit enough to return for a fixture which will kick-off at 2.15pm at William Parker Sports College.

It marks the start of a crucial month for H&B in their survival bid because it is followed by clashes with Whitstable, Crowborough, Medway and rock-bottom Park House.

HASTINGS & BEXHILL 10 - BRIGHTON 33

IT might be seen as the epitome of defeatism, for a team and its hardcore supporters to celebrate a defeat of this magnitude, but that is what H&B did after this sometimes scrappy but always titanic London League Three battle between the league thoroughbreds eying promotion and the local mongrels snarling defiance at the prospect of relegation.

And far from looking the losers they sometimes have this testing season, they were every bit a spirited group of fighters set on defying the odds stacked against them. Without a lead coach, robbed by injury of their elected captain for the second season running, and with meagre player resources compared to virtually all their league opposition   - most other clubs are alive with Southern hemisphere accents - this season H&B have had to throw young players in at the deep end, drag older warriors back into the fray, and sometimes dragoon others without the tools or ambition to compete at this level.

On Saturday, for once, H&B had all but a handful of their first choice players available, albeit with a new young centre partnership of Ashley Diedericks and Christian Hollingsworth, and an unfamiliar back row combination of Paul Sandeman, Andrew Hitch and Ryan Madigan.

On a barely defrosted pitch, the two sides came out fired up for physical domination. After the game, the touchline consensus was that the first 20 minutes were H&B’s worst period - and it’s true that Brighton scored three of their five tries between the 12th and the 20th minutes. The first a pushover by their big and dynamic pack; the second a well-crafted backs’ move that created an overlap, effortlessly exploited; the third an interception from a promising H&B backs’ attack, run all the way back from inside Brighton’s 22 for a 0-19 lead.

But oddly, that first quarter built the confidence H&B needed, because although the scores highlighted the difference between the two sides in execution and in dynamism at the breakdown, the underdogs were matching the visitors in most other areas of the game.

H&B were winning their lineouts; the front five, including man-of-the-match Tom Spatchurst, were matching Brighton’s big pack in the setpiece, and though they were still second best in the contact area, the pack were making their tackles and carrying with venom.

Most importantly, two of Brighton’s important strengths, their back row and their halfbacks, were failing to dominate. Kit Claughton, whose reconstructed knee gets stronger every game, and his half-back partner Piers, gave their opposite numbers a hard time all game, and set the backline off on any number of effective attacks that were barely kept out by Brighton’s committed defence. Diedericks and Hollingsworth both had their best games so far, and Ben Campbell and Tom Brampton looked increasingly like their old, assertively dangerous, selves.

Brighton scored another well-worked try from a turnover on the 30 minute mark, while H&B continued to pose a barely-contained but unconsummated threat to Brighton’s line until just before the half-time whistle, when H&B’s pack made the most of a well-taken lineout, and scored a crucial pushover try for a half-time score of 5-26.

The second half started with a symbolically massive tackle by Ben Davies, which set the tone for the half. H&B marginally dominated a scrappy third quarter, every player getting stuck in, disrupting Brighton’s flow, and ultimately their confidence. Jimmy Adams was everywhere, Sandeman and Hitch worked well together - every player was lifting their game and driving one another on, but close as they came on several occasions, the hosts invariably fluffed the final pass, or were turned over in the tackle. Predictably class told, and it was Brighton who added to their score with a try after a series of attacks inside H&B’s 22.

But H&B’s ambition didn’t falter, and they continued to attack with verve, until a huge cut-out pass from Kit Claughton was gathered by Campbell, who rounded his man with great footwork and tore past the defence to touch down in the corner for a final score of 10-33.

Another loss, a huge hill to climb to avoid the end-of-season drop, but H&B’s lion-hearted  squad appear to be learning those invaluable lifelong lessons about themselves as individuals and a team that can only be gained from defying adversity. The best is yet to come for Hastings & Bexhill.

H&B: Roche, Davies, Spatchurst, Clifford, Adams, Hitch, Sandeman, Madigan (Sheppard), P Claughton (c), K Claughton, Campbell, Diedericks (McManus), Hollingsworth, Whittington (Steadman), Brampton.

Pictures that follow are courtesy of Dave Beech of Brighton Rugby Club.