Crowborough 2's win in last play !

The game was started in a downpour which led to pretty basic one out rugby and lots of handling errors. Scrums were evenly matched with Crowborough having the slight edge in the lineout.

Through a series of catch and drives from lines outs and pick and go’s led by Matt Botterman and Ben Martyn, Crowborough scored 3 tries in the first half to one penalty from Hellingly, 3 – 17.

The game turned around in the second half as Crowborough got on the wrong side of the referee at the breakdown giving away in excess of 25 penalties in the second half alone. This surrendered field position and possession, which on a wet day handed scoring opportunities to Hellingly who took the score to 29 – 20 with seven minutes remaining. This was through three tries to the one, Elliot Rensch penalty. Two of the tries were gifted through Crowborough’s inability to clear their lines, kicking directly to unmarked opposition who ran in virtually unopposed.
With the clock running down Crowborough galvanised their collective efforts and from a period of passion gained the field position to again score with a pick and go. Elliot Rensch made the conversion, 29-27. With no time left on the clock Crowborough had to keep the ball in hand, gained decent field position and were awarded a penalty about 30 metres out, at the edge of the kickers range. Matt Botterman pointed to the posts and Elliot Rensch stepped up to win the game from the tee. The ball was sweetly struck but drifted and rebounded off the left upright. Hellingly were aware and regained passion which felt like game over but at the next breakdown Ed Rogers turned the ball over. Crowborough were 10 metres out and through a series of pick and go’s with Matt Botterman, Mike Van-Someren and Ben Martyn to the fore drove hard at the Hellingly line, but credit to the home side they defended extremely well for four or five phases. By this point their defence was so narrow Crowborough had a two man overlap to the left and through accurate passing with a wet ball got the ball to Rob Horsfall-Turner who dived over the line to take the match in the most dramatic fashion. The conversion was missed with the final score being 29-32 to Crowborough.