Bob Rogers Semi- Final Victory at Pulborough

With the League season at an end, so the Cup season starts, at the semi-final stage with the winners of this match already earmarked to face Horsham Lions (2nd XV) at Worthing RFC next Saturday 20/4/24.
Facing an existential injury crisis within the Crowborough squad , the walking wounded turned up to support the remainder of their colleagues’ and several Colt debutantes who were keen to make their first seasons’ contribution.
Pulborough, have had an excellent season, just missing out on promotion, so this matchup had all the hallmarks of a tight contest.
On a drying pitch with a strong left to right wind dropping the temperature to the other side of “cold”, Pulborough demonstrated why they had been so competitive this season, taking the play to the visitors, and testing their defence from the first whistle.
Crowborough resisted these initial forays, and once they started to compete for the 50/50 balls and turn over possession, they settled into their familiar routine, moving play from one touchline to the other in an effort to stretch the defence.
This ploy soon paid dividends, as Harry Marchesi created the extra man, when Jonte Fraser released Bertie Boast and Josh Jarvis at pace. With the gaps opening up, Jarvis had the briefest of opportunities to squeeze through the 12/13 space, but with a maturity beyond his years, eschewed the potential glory, holding up the pass for the briefest of moments, to draw the defence before popping the pass to Marchesi who breezed into the line to score a Jonte Fraser converted try 0-7.
Moments later Crowborough could have stretched the lead, when Boast launched a long pass to Will Pitman on the wing who cut inside and with two defenders to beat put in a speculative kick ahead to start a thirty metre footrace, which as they crossed the line Pitman was winning. But as he dived to touch down, the unpredictable oval ball did what it often does do, and bounced right, away from the downward pressure, into the hands of the defender.
As is often the case, following some exciting passages of play, a series of scrappy interplays and penalties ensued, and just as the supporters of both side were getting restless, Andy Kidd was first up as a penalty was awarded to the visitors. Taking the obligatory quick tap, play sped down the left wing with Will Pitman latching onto the final pass to score an unlikely try in the corner that went unconverted.0-12.
The next action of the official was to show Yellow to a member of the home side for not releasing in the tackle, which ironically was to galvanise the 14 man Pulborough side into a scoring fest, with two unanswered tries as the Crowborough defence failed to cope with the Pulborough realignment.
Slow to close down the space, and failure to eliminate the dog legged line, allowed the swift Pulborough backs to cut through, and only a Toby Bailey illegal hand prevented the score. As he saw yellow, so the balance of the defence changed once again and Pulborough scored out on the right for an unconverted try.5-12
From the kickoff the Pulborough right wing caught the ball on the charge. Cutting inside he embarrassingly slipped seven attempted tackles before the line was crossed wide out on the left for yet another unconverted try,and bringing the home side right back into the game as half time approached. 10-12HT
A feature of Crowborough’s play during the first half was the wayward and ineffective kicking out of hand, which on several occasions handed hard won ball, back to the opposition to set up their own attacks.
As the second half started, Crowborough received the ball on the right, and as the maul formed, the ball was released and moved to the narrow side to Toby Bailey. Without support or room to move, Bailey, with the presence of mind whipped the ball to the left to Jonte Fraser who released his backs. With momentum building Josh Jarvis latched onto the pass and spying the smallest of gaps slipped through it, and with Pitman in support creating the decoy, he crossed the line for an unconverted try.10-17
With the game moving into the final quarter, Crowborough finished off the afternoon with a second try for Harry Marchesi , converted by Fraser10-24.
As the clock ran down this matchup came to an unfortunate conclusion as one of the Pulborough centres sustained what appeared to be a serious leg injury which brought the game to a premature end 10-24.
Next week Crowborough travel to Worthing RFC for the final of this Cup Competition against Horsham Lions
(2nd XV) - Kick Off 15:00pm.