Eastbourne see off East Grinstead – Haywards Heath too hot for Pulborough

Eastbourne 29 East Grinstead 15

Eastbourne produced a superb fightback to beat the league’s joint leaders – and go clear at the top.

At a very wet and windy Park Avenue it was the cracker everyone hoped it would be.

Eastbourne had injuries to contend with and had to reshuffle the back line, so captain Jake Howe moved from 13 to 10 and Ronnie Doorey-Palmer started at 13 after a few weeks out. Eastbourne welcomed debutant Paul Smith to the bench.

East Grinstead also had injury problems with a couple of regulars out with Covid and a few other knocks.

This did not affect the intensity and energy on display for the largest crowd the club had seen in over a decade.

East Grinstead started the stronger, playing with the conditions, and forced an early penalty. They battered Eastbourne in the opening exchanges, which Eastbourne withstood.

Eastbourne grew into the game after shaking off nerves and had a couple of opportunities which were squandered in the opposition’s 22.

Eastbourne looked confident at the set piece and started to make decent dents in the EG back line. They felt they could see out the half against the conditions only three points down.

But in the final five minutes of the half Eastbourne conceded two tries and one conversion – a bitter pill to swallow as they had grown into the game and was starting to get on top.

The second half started at real pace. Eastbourne have based a lot of their game around fitness and they did appear to be the fitter side.

Now with the conditions, Eastbourne kicked well and pressured EG into penalties and forced them to be pinned in their own 22 for much of the second half.

Joe Bettles was first to cross with good control at the back of a driving maul. Five minutes later Mason Dowle hit the line at pace from full-back and scored a scorcher of a try. Howe kicked the conversion.

Eastbourne, dominating the scrum and with the lineout working perfectly, forced another penalty. After a few phases from a dominant lineout Ian Padget worked his way around two defenders to score in the corner. Howe kicked a superb conversion from wide.

Eastbourne again forced the away side into the corner and from another penalty opted for a scrum, from which they earned a penalty try.

Eastbourne, desperate to stop EG from earning a losing bonus point, kept it tight and battled to keep the determined away side from scoring again.

Howe kicked a penalty with the last kick to round off the win, which was an entire squad effort, not just the 18 players picked to do the job on the day.

Eastbourne will be determined to go undefeated until the return fixture in February – and in that game too!

Meanwhile Eastbourne were invited to be flag bearers at Twickenham for last Sunday’s England match, recognition for the work the club are doing.

Haywards Heath 38 Pulborough 12

Torrential rain during the lead-up to kick off at Whitemans Green meant this match had to survive a late pitch inspection to go ahead, but go ahead it did with Heath responding to the challenging conditions by producing their most complete performance of the season.

With four minutes gone, centre Frank McMillan jinked and side-stepped through the Pulborough midfield before turning on the gas and scoring under the posts. Tom Wharton added the conversion.

With a fierce wind behind them Heath put regular boot to ball to keep Pulborough pinned back in their half but also were not afraid to play.

A break from skipper Wilf Bridges up the centre was quickly recycled by the Heath pack and moved left where Cameron Reed off his wing joined the line and fed fellow winger Mitch Day who rounded the defending cover and slid into score. Wharton converted for 14-0.

When the visitors tried to run the ball out of their own half the Heath tacklers won a penalty for not releasing. Wharton stepped up to kick the three points.

On the half hour mark, Heath's good defensive work earned them a scrum on the Pulborough 22.

Centre Chris Neill ran a beautiful line back against the defence and cut through to slide in and score under the posts. Wharton gave Heath a very healthy 24-0 lead.

Pulborough possession on halfway looked to be going nowhere until a superb pick-up from their prop stunned the Heath backline allowing him to shoot through the gap and offload to his winger - 24-5.

Then Heath’s Harry Edwards, Jack Herbert, Seb Broster, Dan Shotton and Ellis Dubois marched the visitors pack almost to the line where scrum half Jamie Thurston gathered the ball and scrambled over. Wharton made it 31-5.

After the break a converted Pulborough try reduced that to 31-12 before winger Cam Reed burst past tacklers and outpaced the defence on a lung bursting run to score under the posts.

McMillan added the conversion to make a final score of 38-12.

Heath consolidated their position in third place in the league and next week face an away trip to Shoreham.