Crowborough III   26 Hastings & Bexhill II  10

After the comprehensive win at home against a few weeks earlier Hastings & Bexhill 2nd XV travelled to Crowborough for their first round Sussex Vase match with high hopes of a repeat performance and a similar result in their favour this time.

However Crowborough, bolstered by home support and playing on their main pitch next to the new clubhouse were looking for a much improved performance.

Hastings welcomed back fullback Ben Lee after a long absence and he played a major part in the result scoring a try for Hastings late into the second half and acting as the last line of defence against the Crowborough attacks. Ashley Dierdricks returned at centre but he had a recurrence of his injury and his experience was lost ten minute into the second half just as H&B were starting to play some competitive rugby and getting back into the game.

H&B, as is usual, started slowly and within the first few minutes started to give away possession and penalties at the breakdown. After a string of missed penalties by both sides it was the home team that opened the scoring after a high tackle from an H&B defender saw Crowborough slot over the resulting penalty.

Crowborough started to gain in confidence in both defence and attack and after once again turning over H&B attacking ball they hacked ahead to score a try after 32 minutes.  Almost on the stroke of half time they scored a breakaway try to lead 13 - 0 at the interval.

At half time H&B made two changes with youngsters Luke Auckland and John Joe Dawes coming into the game replacing Mike Clifford and Chris Jarvis.

H&B needed to start dominating the game and for a while they attacked well down the flanks with both Toby Finzel and Will Owen making ground but never with enough support to develop their efforts into points. 

After 20 minutes H&B broke the Crowborough line down the right wing and Will Owen dived in wide out near the touchline. Kicker Percy Fitzgerald just failed with a difficult conversion attempt.

Crowborough got two further penalties before Ben Lee scored out wide giving no chance for the conversion to close the gap to one score.

A much more committed second half performance from Hastings and Bexhill put Crowborough under pressure and hard running centre Kevin Rushton forced desperate defending from the Crowborough backs.

Despite spending long periods of time in the Ctowborough half infringements by the H&B players allowed Crowborough to regain the advantage and they scored under the posts in the last minute to win by 26 - 10.

H&B were never really in the game and there will need to be a much improved performance to secure the game away to Hawards Heath in the league next week.