On a miserable grey dreary day, Crawley RFC’s newly formed 3rd XV travelled across the border into Kent to take on Edenbridge, A team predominately made up of vets and return to rugby new comers, assisted by the odd 2nd team player, travelled believing the fixture was against a 2nd or 3rd team opposition, when in fact we were playing the only Edenbridge team their 1st XV.

Never the less the Cawley side started brightly and attacked Edenbridge pinning them in their own 22, a final wave of pressure saw Crawley awarded a penalty 5 meters out, quickly taken and a crash ball saw skipper Dave Bevan storm over for the 1st try of the game.

After the restart Crawley again piled on the pressure with some great attacking rugby and saw fly half for the day Fraser Thomson scurry round the Edenbridge defence to score under the posts which he easily converted.

From this point on although the game was still very much for Crawley they couldn’t get across for the line for another score, unfortunately frustration started to show resulting in a yellow card 30 mins into the 1st half, this allowed Edenbridge to get a foothold and a spell of defence for Crawley.

The 2nd half started badly for Crawley, with Edenbridge showing a renewed optimism it wasn’t long before they deservedly scored their 1st try of the game, once again Crawley let ill discipline show and a 2nd yellow card, this really allowed Edenbridge back into the game with 2 converted tries, for the first time Crawley were trailing and a score was needed.

Buoyed by actually having 15 players on the field again Crawley once again started to dominate but lacked the killer ball……..until latecomer Ollie Hall stepped up and ran in his 1st of the game 15 mins from time, the scores now stand at 19-17 to Edenbridge.

Disaster struck once again as frustration in the hunt for the winning points showed and the 3rd sin binning of the game saw Crawley back down to 14, but they didn’t let this affect them and carried on with the attack, 5 minutes left and Crawley were awarded a penalty, Fraser stepped up and a score would see Crawley close the game down a point infront……..alas a great kick just shy of the post still left Crawley behind, back up to 15 players, Crawley still couldn’t find the try line, but in the final minute centre Ellis Rouch saw the opportunity for a perfectly timed tackle and ripped the ball from an advancing Edenbridge attack, and a quick off load to Ollie Hall to break and run in his 2nd of the game from quite a distance, leaving the referee to blow his whistle after the resulting missed conversion, Crawley victory and final score 19-22 to the visitors.

A very tough game and certainly our strongest opposition to date, but a massive effort from every single person, and dare I say it the hard work in training is now starting to pay off, suddenly we are starting to look a lot like a rugby team !

Special mentions to man of the match Wayne Howell some great support work and excellent strength in the Scrum & line out.
Andy Jagger for an outstanding performance on the wing despite being a new comer to the game.
Alex Saul, all the way from the land down under to play on a very heavy and muddy pitch, but was full of running and made serious ground.
Liam Webb for standing in at scrum half and Grant Woolard for a big game at centre.
Also many thanks to Ollie, Jermaine and Fraser for stepping in when numbers were short.

Return 2 Rugby has continued into the New Year with a specially tailored training session aimed at the more social player, training takes place every Tuesday at 7.30.

Team:
1 Wayne Howell
2 Stu Mckenzie
3 Jermaine Weeden
4 Rod Taylor
5 Tony Parsons
6 Ollie Hall
7 Alex Saul
8 Dave Bevan
9 Liam Webb
10 Fraser Thomson
11 Keith Parrot
12 Ellis Rouch
13 Grant Woolard
14 Andy Jagger
15 Curtis Craddock

16 John Ruffhead
17 Paul Hayward
18 Sean Coliins
19 Ray Sutherland