A Stop, Start Performance by the Crow's

Match Report By Rick Howe
Photo's By Drew Pratt
Our Referee today was Mr Martin Wilson.

While the rest of the country was seemingly swamped under the deluge released by Storm Babet, Crowborough ran out into a surreal bright warm and sunny, south London micro climate, for round seven.
Charlton Park is never an easy venue to visit, and from the outset, the big Park eight, drove hard and deep into the ‘Boro half, determined to disrupt Boro’s ability to control possession and the narrative of how the game was to be played.
Crowborough weathered this initial onslaught, and proceeded to put together their own pressured attack as they moved closer to the park line with several pick and drives that were well defended by the park defence.
From a knock on, the Boro scrum secured quick ball for Ollie Clinch to pick up at the base, and with a sleight of hand and call from Bertie Boast, slipped through the engineered gap to score close to the posts making his own conversion a formality. 0-7
Park pulled back three points after Boro were pinged for holding on, keeping the score within four points, and frustrating the visitors who were to find that putting day light between the side would be a difficult task. 3-7
As the game progressed, the pattern of play became more evident, as Park, determined to stem the free flowing Boro backs, played on and often beyond the offside line, without apparent sanction, which only encouraged the behaviour further. This successful tactic, forced Boro to kick, often aimlessly and providing good attack ball to the home side.
However Boro were not to be discouraged and drove deep into the Park 22. From a scrum Andy Kidd broke right but got held up short of the line. Will Creasey continued the moved crabbing right away from support, and just as it seemed that the three defenders have him corralled, he span out of the tackle to crash over for the score that Ollie Clinch converted. 3-14
Park continued to top up their score with a penalty, and then rocked the visitors, who must have felt that they were controlling the game, with two quick score in the space of a few minutes.
With a penalty into the corner, Park won the lineout, and with the right wing coming across into the outside centre berth put the left wing into the corner for an unconverted try. 11-14.
The next score followed a Tom Boddy yellow card just before half time, when again a penalty was placed deep into the Boro half, and from the lineout the backs attacked the space vacated by Boddy sliding over for another unconverted try to take the half time score to 16-14. Half Time.
The second half continued much like the first, featuring stop/start rugby, with a litany of injuries, and stoppages that was to see the half stretch to almost 55 minutes. Boro were becoming more and more frustrated, not just from the off-sides decisions that were going unpunished, but by the far more serious home side’s high tackles that the official in charge seemed reluctant to punish.
Andy Kidd was to use that frustration to reverse the lead, by finishing off an excellent team move started by George Jones who linked with his backs, and as the cover came across Ollie Clinch slipped the pass inside for the #8. (Kidd) to score out wide on the right. Ollie Clinch’s kick slid wide. 16-19
Crowborough now upped the pace as Park started to tire. A tap penalty by Kidd caught park napping. His pass inside to Purnell then found Creasy who was held up short of the line, but illegally so. Another tap penalty saw Alex Purnell cross the line for the score. With Boro returning to the halfway, the official then changed his mind believing the ball to have been held up, and awarded Boro the scrum! The reprieve was to be short lived as from the scrum by Andy Kidd, then off loaded to Sam Marchesi to take over the line for the unconverted bonus point try 16-24
Crowborough were now back on track and from the KO the best score of the game came when the ball was fielded by Andy Kidd, who fed to Alex Purnell who was running an outside to in line. Taking the ball at pace he breezed through several attempted tackles, and was in danger of outstripping his support, when 2nd row George Jones, showing extraordinary pace, appeared on his shoulder to take the offload. Still with work to do Andy Orchard provided the next level of support, with Harry Marchesi arriving to steal the forward thunder and cross the line for a Bertie Boast converted try. 16-31
With dusk rapidly arriving, and the earlier clear skies once more clouding over, it was left to Bertie Boast to bring the game to an end with a final, to touch. 16-31 Full Time.