Heath V Horsham

So, with the Christmas festivities consigned to distant history, it was time for the Heath boys to blow off their holiday cobwebs with a welcome return to the the rugby field and there’s no better “starter for ten” in this respect than a run out against the best side in Sussex.

In fairness to Horsham, they were missing a larger number of their 'A' players to County duty, than Heath. However, being the best still meant that they could field a strong team which became evident after a ten minute spell of equal sparring, when Horsham were able to break free from a couple of weak tackles to go 7-0 up.
As requested by the coaches, Heath responded quickly with Oliver Owens, our recently converted centre, breaking free after some good approach work from Liam McCaulay, to score in the corner. This was superbly converted by Christian Streater from out wide to level the scores at 7-7.

The first half was a fairly even affair with both sides producing some excellent rugby which was contributing to a very enjoyable, if occasionally feisty, game for all those watching. It looked like this would be the half time score until Christian Streater saw some space behind the on-rushing Horsham defence to land an excellent cross kick around their 22. Mitchell Day won the race for the ball and was able to show good footballing skills to dribble it over the line and then drop on it for the score. The conversion was missed and so Heath led 12-7 going into the break.

With Heath now playing up the slope in the second half, the coaches made a number of changes to give everyone in the squad equal game time. This normally signals a period of readjustment for the team however, the squad have now learnt to adapt and were quickly on the offensive with one of the new arrivals, Daniel Grant working hard in contact to crash over from close range and so Heath led 17-7. Heath were now firmly in the ascendancy and two further half time replacements then contributed to the next score, Tom Roberts was able to wriggle over for the next score after Bobby Collins' customary disallowed try! This took the score out to 22-7 until Daniel Grant worked hard again in contact to break through for his second try which, with the ref on the other side of the break down, was correctly called by the touch judge. Heath now had a comfortable 27-7 lead and about 10 minutes to go.

Unfortunately, after a silly Heath infringement which required the intervention of the ref, Heath appeared to lose focus and allowed Horsham back into the game. This culminated with a well worked try in the corner and a superb conversion to take the score to 27-14, which was how the game finished.

An excellent performance from all of the Heath squad today with everyone contributing and again, a couple of the boys playing in unfamiliar positions. Harry Edwards was prominent in the loose and Bobby Collins again made a number of aggressive surges. Adam Southern was excellent in the rucks and mauls when he arrived onto the pitch just before halftime and was able to hold up their player in the maul for a turnover on a couple of occasions when Horsham had worked themselves into dangerous positions. However, today’s Man of the Match award goes to the Heath fly half Christian Streater for some excellent kicking out of hand, as well as his distribution and game management.

Next week, it’s back to league action with a resurgent looking Edenbridge travelling to Heath. The boys will need to be totally focused for the full 60 minutes and mentally prepared as the league is fast approaching its pivotal point.