Crawley 2's produce a Christmas cracker!

Crawley were certain underdogs for this game as they sat bottom of the table still looking for their first win. Crawley how ever fielded their strongest team so far this season hoping to cause an upset. Newick won the toss and opted to change ends forcing Crawley to play the first half with the sun in their eyes, Crawley kicked the game off and got off to an incredible start as from tom Floyds kick off Newick knocked on allowing Crawley’s forwards to dive on it and win a clean ruck, the ball was passed out to Alex figg at inside centre who broke through Newick's defence, with a last gasp tackle from Newick Alex figg was brought down five meters out. How ever Newick had not done enough as Will Jones had offered great support allowing Alex Figg to off load the ball quick leaving Will Jones to score under the posts. With Crawley 7-0 up with in the first minute Crawley had shown Newick that they where going to be no walk over. Newick restarted the game and both sides started to give away a lot of penalties for killing the ball in the contact putting both teams under pressure. With Newick kicking to the corners with any ball they did have, Crawley were pined in to there own half and with a number of miss tackles from the line out Newick had levelled the scores to 7-7.

Crawley did not drop their heads and with in minutes they had restored their lead, with some great rugby being played by Crawley Alex Figg broke the Newick defence again giving him a clear run to the line, Alex fig scored under the posts giving Crawley a 12-7 lead. With the game starting to hot up and Newick becoming increasingly aggravated Newick started to give away penalty after penalty. The referee gave both teams a warning as the penalty count started too increased dramatically. With Crawley taking this message on board their discipline was impeccable how ever this was not the same for Newick as the next phase of play lead to Newick giving away yet another penalty for killing the ball, the referee had no choice but to sin bin the player, giving Crawley a one man advantage. Crawley decided to kick to touch form the penalty, which they won their and then set up a ruck. Newick gave away yet another penalty, this time for handling in the ruck this lead to another yellow card for a Newick player. Crawley now had a 2 man advantage with 12 minutes till half time. Crawley soon took advantage of having the extra two men, with Crawley pressuring on the Newick 5 meter line. With both Crawley's scrum half and fly half at the bottom of the ruck, some quick thinking from Ollie Plunkett, Will Jones, and Alex Figg lead to another Crawley try. Ollie Plunkett stood in at scrum half and got the ball out quick to Will Jones who off loaded to Alex fig who crossed the line for his 2nd try of the game. Crawley now had a lead of 17-12.

With only 2 minutes left on the clock both Newick players had rejoined the game from the sin bin. Crawley gave away a rare penalty which Newick kicked to touch. With a line out on crawley’s 5 meter line, Newick used a driving maul from the line out to score their second try of the game. The score was now 17-12 and as this was the last play of the half so Crawley went in to the half time break with a 5 point lead.

Crawley used all their replacements at half time refreshing their team hoping to retain there lead. With some fresh legs on for Crawley, Newick kicked off the second half and Crawley had not taken their foot off pedal yet and were dominating possession. It was not long before Crawley had scored again and extended their lead. With some great phases being put together by Crawley Alex fig managed to break the Newick defence once again to score his 3rd try of the game to make the score 22-12. Newick stared to get hold of the game and started to gain more possession of the ball, however Crawley were not going to let Newick get back in to the game that easily and some great defence and big hits from Crawley, killed Newick attacks. It was not long before Crawley had the ball deep into Newick 22 and some quick hands and nice support play allowed Crawley to score once again. Birthday boy and debutant Nye Rees crossed the line to finish off the play. Crawley had now extended there lead to 27-12. Newick restarted the game again and Crawley used the ball well once again to score yet another try this time Ollie Hall broke the Newick defence leaving him with a clear run to the posts where he swallow dived to finish the play off. Crawley had now a lead of 34-12.

With no more than 5 minutes left Newick set there sights on a last push to score a try, Crawley were defending well on there own line and with the clock counting down every one was putting every thing in to defend the line. With some crunching tackles and strong scrummaging from Crawley Newick did not look like scoring. With one last push to score from Newick there fly half attempted and cross field kick to their lonely winger, however the kick was not executed well and ended up going back wards. Crawley got possession back and cleared there lines relieving the pressure. The ball was put into touch and the referee blew for full time which was followed by a cheer from the home supporters. The game ended Crawley 34-12 Newick. Crawley had ended Newick’s unbeaten run and had scored more points past them than they had conceded all season. Crawley played some outstanding rugby and really showed today that no one should under estimate them. With this being there first win of the season Crawley go into the Christmas break with something to celebrate. Crawley showed some great character and some impeccable discipline. The Crawley team was full of some young talent showing there potential and we all hope this talent moves through the club into the first team in the near future.

Crawley 34 (Will Jones, Alex Figg 3, Nye Rees)
Newick 12

Paul Rouch, Jac Nell, Dave Bewdeny, Ollie Plunkett (c), Graeme Garry, Adam Blythman, Dan Bland, Ollie Hall, Bob Grantham, Tom Floyd, Joe Morgan, Alex Figg, Will Jones, Ian Cotton, Richie Barnes
replacements: Janis, Rod, Neil, Alan Maybank.