Hastings and Bexhill 2nd team for once had a strong squad of players after the last couple of matches had started with just the 15 on the pitch. Starting on a pitch that was slow and heavy going due to the weather, the first 10 minutes was a straight forwards games, one of the Seaford players went down in a tackle and a recurring injury (dislocated knee cap) ended his game, as he was going to need to be stretcher off the pitch for the ambulance the game was moved onto the first team pitch that was now not in use.
The game restarted and being firmer under foot gave H&B the opportunity to exert pressure on Seaford opening the game wide with the forwards doing a fantastic job all afternoon, causing the visitors all sorts of problems in ruck and maul situations and taking more than 1 scrum against the head. With such a good platform to work from the try's stacked in H&B favour coming from McDonald (2), Diedericks, McManus, Granger, Hirst.
A special mention for David Hirst stepping up from the thirds for the day and going over in the corner ball in-hand to score, first game at 2nd team level at over an age when he should be taking it easy.
But the most memorable was a brilliant bit of rugby from 1 to 15 which showed great hands and running lines the ball turned over by the pack, moved quickly to centre field McDonald breaking the line and passing out of the tackle to Diedericks who blazed up line cutting back in-field passing to Woolcott in-turn switching the line out field finishing off in the corner.
The pressure showing for Seaford at times they gave away a penalty try towards the end of the match but kept their heads up showing true grit and determination which earned them a consolation try with only minutes to go.
The availability of players made the game a lot better for H&B as it allowed changes to be made in the game and it would be great for those players to try to make themselves available as much as possible.
Squad: O'Conner (Granger), Sprinks, Brooks, Saunders (Peek), Edworthy, Barber, Pearce, Roach (Edmonds), Hollingsworth (Milham), Stokes, Hurst, McDonald, Woolcott, Diedericks, McManus
