Eastbourne III 5 Hastings & Bexhill II 44

Hastings and Bexhilll 2nd XV traveled to Eastbourne for a friendly fixture and welcomed the return of centre Kevin Rushton after a foot injury. Kevin contributed to a committed team performance scoring a try and receiving the man of the match award in a 44 - 5 win.

H&B had suffered by slow starts in their previous games putting themselves under pressure but in this game H&B started from the whistle and after penetrating drives from Kevin Rushton and Ben Arnold deep into the Eastbourne territory skipper Peter Mahoney crashed over for the first try after only three minutes.

Despite H&B pressure Eastbourne clawed back a try after a kick ahead but failed to make a simple conversion to take the lead and after 13 minutes the scores were even at 5 - 5 which didn't reflect the standard of rugby being played by H&B.

H&B weren't affected and kept their concentration adding commitment in the contact areas and after storming runs from second row Andy Sanders and Aidey Mahoney prop Andy Dalton took three defenders over the line stretching out to place the ball down for a try after 22 minutes. Soon after that try Eastbourne continued to probe the H&B defence and twice newcomer Toby Finzel made try savings tackles. Unfortunately a desperate tackle by a H&B defender led to a serious leg injury to an Eastbourne player and a delay of 15 minutes whilst attention was given on the pitch with the player being taken to hospital.

After the delay the game got started and H&B continued with their driving play, offloading in the tackle and winning the ruck and maul contests leading to skipper Pete Mahoney scoring his second try just before half time and H&B went to half time 15 - 5 ahead with Eastbourne still in the game.

In the second half H&B continued with the high level of discipline and commitment and despite losing number 8 Aidey Mahoney with a blood injury. Replacements Nick Edmunds and Dom Sewell contributed to a dominant performance with Sewell, Arnold (2) and Rushton adding tries and third team skipper Pete Eames, playing at scrum half after late withdrawals, kicking two conversions for H&B to finish the game 44 - 5.

Skipper Pete Mahoney said this was a much harder game than the score reflects but the commitment by the team was superb and he hopes for a similar performance the next time we meet Eastbourne in the league.

Pete also hopes that the Eastbourne player who suffered the injury recovers soon and the sends the best wishes of all the H&B players.