Venue swich suits Haywards Heath as Crawley are beaten

Heath exploded into action and within minutes were on the board when a crossfield kick from Tom Wharton was tapped back by chasing centre James Trinder for debutant colt Cam Reed, playing on the wing, to collect. He scampered around the defence wide on the right to score. Wharton knocked over the extras for a 7-0 lead.

Crawley pulled themselves back into it with their own crossfield kick bouncing back into their hooker’s arms and he touched down for 7-5.

Heath pressure in the Crawley red zone looked like it was to no avail as a couple of try-scoring opportunities were missed, but when the referee pulled the teams back to a penalty in front of the posts for Crawley being offside, Wharton took advantage - 10-5.

A Crawley clearance kick was fielded by Heath who fed the ball to fullback Dougie Kern, who outstripped the defence down the touchline to score – 15-5.

This was as good as the first half got for Heath who allowed Crawley back into it – from the restart Heath infringed in front of their own posts which was kicked over for 15-8.

On the half hour mark Crawley scored their second try with another crosskick through a fractured Heath defence for their full-back to slide over in the corner to claw the score back to 15-13, which is how it stayed until half-time. A few home truths from the coaching staff at the break saw Heath back on the park with new vigour, immediately putting pressure on the visitors.

Quick ball off the top of well-functioning lineout was swung out to Chris Neill, on at inside centre, who ran a hard line back against the defence to score. Wharton kicked the conversion for 22-13.

Five minutes later another penalty was kicked by Heath to the same corner. This time they varied the play and after an initial maul from the lineout, number eight Fraser Russell burst off the back and over for the bonus point try. Wharton added the conversion for 29-13.

Crawley, turning over a scrum in the Heath 22, moved the ball down the right and scored to make it 29-18. However for the last quarter of the match Heath snuffed out any attempts to play from Crawley with the back row of Fraser Russell, Ben Eustace and MoM Jack Herbert competing fiercely at the breakdown and chopping the Crawley runners.

Neill was pulled down just short of the line where quick thinking from scrum half Jamie Thurston saw him dart over to extend the lead to 34-18.

Reed to put the icing on the cake on debut. Coming off his own wing, he took the ball and shot through a gap to touch down in the corner. Wharton was on target for a final score of 41-18 – a great way to get back to winning ways.

This week sees fourth placed Pulborough visit third placed Heath (2.30pm).