Crowborough III 0 Hastings & Bexhill II 75

Hastings and Bexhill's second XV travelled to Crowborough for the next installment in the league and were impressed by the new clubhouse and facilities.

Andy Dalton led the side, in the absence of Pete Mahoney, with a young side bolstered by a number of H&B Colts making their debut in senior fixtures. The presence of senior players such as Ben Arnold and Nick Edmunds, returning after 12 months out with a knee injury, held out the promise of a good competitive game.

Despite a slow start H&B's forwards, ably led by Aidey Mahoney and Andy Dalton, pressured the Crowborough pack in both scrum and line out, and centres Kevin Rushton and Ben Arnold continually punched holes in the Crowborough defence.

The first score came after ten minutes from winger Will Owen. After that H&B's pack continued to dominate with driving rucks and well won line out ball where Alex Waring and Nick Edmunds were dominant.

More tries followed with Kevin Rushton going over from a well worked set piece move, two tries for Aidey Mahoney and two for scrum half Dan Suggett. All converted by stand off Percy Fitzgerald.

H&B were controlled in defence, strong in attack and, with the Colts willing to run all day, finished the first half leading 40 - 0.

The second half carried on in the same vein as the first as confidence flowed through the team.

Players tracking the attack latched onto off loads to get behind the Crowborough defence and the home side had no answers to the H&B rugby.

In the second half H&B scored five more tires through, Arnold, Calvin Clark-Crosby (2), Percy Fitzgerald and one more for Suggett to complete his hat-trick.

With the score at 0 - 75 the Crowborough side who had battled all game requested an early finish and the referee agreed with 15 minutes left.

The confidence of the youngsters building on the base of experience in the forwards provided real balance and promise to future league games especially next weeks game against local rivals Cinque Ports.

Coach Gary Walsh said that the purpose of the second team this year was to concentrate on development and this match shows that we have in our Colts players who will benefit from exposure at this level of senior rugby and this result bodes well for the rest of the season.