Hastings & Bexhill 5 Crowborough 24

Hastings were looking forward to this game after the news that Crowbrough had lost their game in hand to Brighton the previous week.

With a full squad to pick from the league leaders travelled with a full strength team and the prospect of wrapping the title up away from home.

The game started of with both teams seemingly on an equal footing, the game moving to and fro with speed and good quality play. Hastings had the better of the first exchanges and Matt Harbord scored midway through the first half giving the visitors a 5-0 lead.

Hastings again showed control with the ball and dominated possession for some time, however it was Crowbrough who scored next under the posts.  The home teams centre partnership, not seen in either of the past two encounters, were creating space with hard, powerful runs. Time and time again they carried the ball up and through the gain line.

At half time with the score at 7-5 to the home team, Hastings were still in with a shout of victory, however, the control and ball handling skills that have been superb so far this season just seemed to ebb away. Matt Harbord struggled to control much ball from rucks and mauls.  Slow ball out to the backs was just not effective as the Crowbrough heads lifted and the H&B ones just dropped.

Crowbrough ran in two more tries in the latter part of the second half to gain a well deserved victory.

"I'm not really sure what happened today" said captain Dave Kemp-Milham, "we had got ourselves into a great position in the league and have let that go, we will really need to dig deep now over the next couple of weeks.  Crowbrough still have to play Heathfield so hopefully they will do us a favour."

Man of the match was again Harbord who's tackling and hard work in and around the break down area was fantastic. Hastings have a week off again this weekend and hope to have a good training session at their William Parker pitch.

Team: Dawes, Williams, Granville, Sewell, Sanders, Cullingford, MacManus, P.Mahoney, Harbord, Kemp-Milham, Hanny, Hollingworth, Pearce, Woolcott, Petty, Stevens, O'Connor, Stern