A Performance of `True Grit` from the Boy's who travelled to Beckenham.....

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Match Report to follow....

But before the Kick-off, we suffered the first injury of the afternoon with Nick Hill. who unfortunately twisted his ankle in the warm-up !
This created a re-shuffle of the team, with a number of players playing out of position.
The evergreen Dan Moore moving in to Scrum-half berth, and seeing Ben Searle out on the far wing was interesting to say the least.....

Match report by Rick Howe.

Crowborough arrived in South London with just sixteen players showing seven changes from their last outing, and as a portent to the outcome of the afternoon, enforcer Nick Hill turned an ankle during the warm up to be replaced by the evergreen Dan Moore, relieving the coaching staff from decisions on how to use the bench ------as there wasn’t one!
With these enforced changes, several players found themselves playing in unaccustomed positions, specifically Ben Searle out wide on the right wing, who soon found that he had the beating of his opposite number.
Crowborough played the first fifteen minutes deep in the Beckenham half, and their pressure was rewarded with a penalty from Connor Hand. Minutes later a Becks clearance was taken by Tom McMahon in his own 22, and unchallenged motored into the Becks half finding Ben Searle on his outside. With 25 metres to go and the cover slow to react Ben Searle drew the defence but uncharacteristically slung a quick but misdirected pass to the support runner with the line begging. 0-3
That unfortunately was to be the last time that the Beckenham line was seriously threatened, as Becks got their own game together, through their large mobile pack that took the direct approach driving straight through an increasingly porous ‘Boro defence.
Once they had identified the weak areas, they continued to exploit them almost at will, providing ball for their well drilled centres running in several tries before half time, that saw the home side record 26 points, a score that appears to have become the default setting with the same half time points shipped in three of the past four games. 26-3
Crowborough’s set piece was somewhat of a curates egg, with the scrum holding its own, but the lineout a shambles. Unfortunately as the match wore on ‘Boro tried to emulate the Beckenham “charge through the brick wall” type of attack ignoring the strength out on the wing that would have paid dividends.
To their credit, even as the scoreboard continued to show the game slipping further and further away from them with a further 26 points conceded, the ‘Boro 15 did not let their heads drop, but it was becoming clearer that even this grit and determination was not going to be sufficient to replace that obvious need for more rugged experience and guile, that will surely be needed in future weeks for ‘Boro to rescue their season.
On Saturday Boro’ face 11th place Bromley in the League at Steel Cross, A positive result would go a long way to restoring some pride and passion into the young outfit ……