As Beccehamians arrived at the Crawley clubhouse, the rain had stopped, and spirits were high with the return of some old faces not seen for a season or two to the first XV dressing room. Straight down to business in the warm up, a very structured and intense session allowed for a great team run – much better than last week against the Lancers.

Things didn’t quite go to plan from the off however, clearly the Crawley team had a very good warm up too! From the kick off came a period of Crawley possession that put the Beccehamian line under pressure for the first 10 mins, minimum, in fact, I don’t remember touching the ball other than at the line-outs. It took about 15 mins for Beccehamians to get used to the Crawley game, which was very much based around strong jackle position at the breakdown, something that they were very good at.

However, once the game-plan was adjusted adequately, Beccehamians managed to get their first venture down into the Crawley half, it took until around the 20 min mark for either side to get on the board however, with the larger Beccehamian pack gaining the ascendency against the Crawley scrum, pinned in the bottom corner, it took until the third scrum infringement for the ref to of had enough, up went the arm, as he jogged under the posts to award a penalty try, converted well by Fullback Paul Broardhurst. From the kick off, Beccehamians once again put themselves under pressure, not clearing their lines and allowing Crawley good attacking platform just outside the 22, however, the Beccehamians defence held firm, and we managed to escape with a thumping kick from fly half Jordan Souter – into the strong wind that had foiled many of the escape attempts thus far.

The next try came from a quick tap penalty taken by Freddie Buckle, I was having a rest on the wing at the time, and shouting at Fred to either go for the posts or the corner, but he didn’t, and much to my further annoyance, he threw me the ball (must have had confidence in me from my showing at fly half at training on Thursday…) – with my rest scuppered I decided to attempt a little run before offloading to debutant winger Gabriel, who used some gas on the outside to almost break before being scragged, but the combination of great awareness and good support lines from centre David Speed allowed for the offload, and for Speed to get to the line untouched to make the scores 0-12 – conversion missed, and that’s how we went into half time.

I didn’t hear the halftime team talk, as I had to continually walk in circles to ensure that my injured knee didn’t seize up, but I imagine it would have been something along the lines of “good job” and “try and work the phases”, general things like that…

As the second half began, the arm-wrestle between the good stealing work by Crawley and the dominant set piece for Beccehamians re-commenced, with the wind behind them, it didn’t take long for Beccehamians to get back down into the Crawley 22 and set for another go at a pushover try, this time the Crawley scrum stayed on their feet, however they couldn’t stop the power coming through, and Beccehamians pushed over, for number 8 Michael O’Hehir touching down at the back, but the front row claiming all of the credit… 0-19, converted by Broardhurst.

Sadly this was the point at which the pain-killers ran out for my knee, and I was sent packing to the sheds for an early shower to ensure that offending knee didn’t seize up too badly in the cold weather. Therefore the next twenty mins, I don’t actually know what happened, however upon my return to the touch line (nice and clean and warm) the score was 7-19, so clearly Crawley had scored a converted try. With not much time left in the game, Beccehamians went in with another score from a wonderful chip through from Tom Parker, coming off the bench to move in at fly half, to Jordan Souter who out-paced the Crawley winger to touch down in the corner, conversion missed again, 7-24 was the score.

With Beccehamians once again making the voyage into Crawley territory, and a penalty being awarded with about 5 mins remaining, the decision was made to ensure that the game was out of reach of the home side by electing to go for the 3 points, with Broardhurst being off the field, the penalty was scored by stand in kicker Souter taking the score to 7-27.

The final meaningful play of the match was a try scored by Crawley, and a good try it was too, solid scrum from their forwards, who had been under pressure at the set piece all day, allowed the backs to run a well worked move, and a good support line allowed one of their players (sorry – didn’t see which one) to gallop under the posts for a converted score.

Final Score 14 – 27 to Beccehamians (despite their website saying 17-33???) In the end a solid performance by all, and well done to debutant Gabriel on a strong performance, out of position on the wing.

After the game I have no idea what was said, as I wasn’t on the pitch, but I’m sure it was something along the lines of “well done”. Thanks to Crawley RFC for being very good hosts, great set-up down there, and best of luck for the rest of your season.

Scorers

Tries: Pen, Speed, O’Hehir, Souter

Cons: Broardhurst (2)

Pens: Souter (1)