Lewes victorious but Crowborough and Heathfield u14 Girls show marked improvements

We beat the weather (just!) as it was touch and go whether the game would be played thanks to our beautiful British climate! But, with the pitch inspection giving us the all-clear early on a lovely Autumn Sunday morning for the U14 girls of Crowborough and to face the travelling Lewes.
It was always going to be a tough game as Lewes have played together as a group for a few seasons now so they had experience on their side, but the plucky underdogs in red and white weren’t there to simply make up the numbers and they demonstrated by being in fabulous voice from warm up to kick off. Lewes had 15 but had to drop to 14 just before kick off. Even though we could have played with 15 as per the league stipulations we asked our ample bench if anyone fancied playing for the opposition for the first half. To her credit, Emily Buckwell happily volunteered to help them out so hats off to her as playing for the opposition is never an easy task.

Isobel Kirby captained the side for this match and led the girls into battle with Chloe Bains kicking off for Lewes to receive. Both teams battled well in the numerous tackles and rucks and the ball was turned over by both teams a number of times in a very entertaining first period of play. You could see that all the girls had been paying attention in training as the rucking and counter rucking had definitely improved. A joy to behold!

Lewes broke early on only to be denied by a try saving tackle into touch by our coaches player of the match Megan Wiseman who excelled in the full back position. Every time they seemed to get through the defensive line Megan was there to sweep up any errant blue and white attackers. The following line out was turned over and led to the first try of the day by Lewes. We were unlucky to be 5-0 at this point as we had matched our opponents blow for blow up to that point. Ball back in hand – we go again! Not much time had passed, and Lewes were 10 – 0 up but the red and white of Crowfield stayed strong and went again.

There was some great strength on show with second row Daisy Howes ripping the ball from the hands of her opponents, a steal on the ground from Chloe Bains and some superb counter rucking steals from Nelly Jupp, Willow Mecham and Lauren Martin.
At this point in proceedings, we saw the first of our many injuries of the day. Our fearless centre Nelly had been landed on in a ruck and was struggling with her left knee so the first of many of Pauls ice packs were administered and we had to change things around with Lexie Cheek coming off the bench onto the wing and Poppy Rodriguez moving to centre.

Lewes continued to knock at the door and apply a ton of attacking pressure, but the defence held strong and defiant for some time until Lewes breached the candy cane wall and scored again. Just prior to this a certain try has been denied by player of the match Zoe Voss as she bravely fought to get under the ball as their ample attack were trying to bundle over the line. Great strength and awareness on display from our no.8 there.
Nearing half time, we continued to see the grit on display from Heath-borough and you’d have been forgiven for questioning the scoreline as the effort they were putting in was not reflected in the score. We saw an asthma-pump requiring run from Lauren Martin nearing the end of the first half, a break from Megan Wiseman that was stopped short and some serious tackling from our reliable tackling machine Jessica “the stopper” Vos.

Injury number 2 saw another tackling masterclass end as Daisy H had to come off as she had seemingly worn her shoulder out from too much tackling! A slight shift around in the pack and Freya Rogers coming off the bench, we were set to carry on. Nelly had recovered so we swapped her back on to see out the first half and test her knee – thumbs up – all good!
First half ended Crowfield 0 – Lewes 29. Not a score that reflected the half.
Onwards and upward into the second half! Emily B had come back over to us and Sophia Colley had bravely volunteered to join Lewes for the second half. Thank you well done Sophia! This was much a reflection of the previous half with the visitors still in control of the scoreboard but the not really reflecting the battle form both sides on the pitch.

This half tested the depth of the Crowfield collective as Chloe suffered a nasty muscle tear in her calf after getting up after a breakdown. A short delay whilst her injury was dealt with and we all wish her a speedy recovery.
Not long after this incident Lauren Martin was clobbered with a high tackle after teasing everyone with a potential repeat of her long-range heroics against Hove. Unfortunately, rather than being rewarded with a try this time, she was given a hard collision with the ground and Lauren had to go off for the rest of the game.

Daisy coming on to cover for Lauren meant another shift around in the pack but still our scrum was strong due to the girl’s flexibility in the pack. They have all been able to adjust to different positions this season which means we can deal with a few missing people as others can cover positions well and we can still compete. Testament to the girls determination in the face of adversity.
The resulting penalty to Crowfield led to a scrum around 7 metres out where Megan picked the ball from the base of the scrum and ran it into the corner for our only try of the game. It might have been the only try we scored but the home support was on hand from the gallery as usual the show the team that this was well and truly deserved. The biggest cheer of the day for a huge collective effort.
Into the last period we saw another brave player fall to injury which meant the end of Nelly’s Day as she took another blow to the knee and had to call it a day. One more try and an excellent kicking display saw Lewes add more points right on the ref’s final whistle and the game ended Crowborough & Heathfield 5 – Lewes 53.
Minus two of our players all the girls celebrated afterwards with the Crowborough & Heathfield team pleased with both the effort put in and the game-on-game improvements the had made.

Zoe Voss was voted player of the match by Lewes for a string performance in the pack both in the tackle and ball carrying. She received almost her body weight in Dairy milk which was very kindly distributed to the rest of team and Megan Wiseman was votes the coaches player of the match due to her attacking runs and her defensive efforts as full back.

All in all, a great performance from both teams and a fantastic advert for girls grass root rugby.