Uckfield Festival

12 players made the short trip down to a sunny, but windy, Uckfield festival. These players had missed out on either (or both) the East Sussex and Lewes festivals so it was their chance to show what they could do.

With no expectations, other than the instruction to enjoy themselves, the boys started the first first game against Heathfield with determination and great team spirit, scoring 5 tries - some through individual speed and skill and some through great teamwork - to Heathfield's 2.

Next up were Horsham and the result was even more impressive, running out 6-1 winners. This was turning into a very special day!

Haywards Heath were the next opposition and proved to be mighty - a really closely fought, physical game was ended a few seconds early when a Heath player had the wind knocked out of him following a double tackle by Lucas and Dan. Despite the fantastic claims of one of the HH coaches, there was no foul play involved, just a question of angles and power with Lucas providing the former and Dan the latter! The HH player did dust himself off and play again in their other matches. We took the win 2-1.

Eastbourne were next up and they proved to be probably the best passing side of the festival with an ability to hold on to the ball and keep it moving until gaps appeared in the defensive line. The result was a 2-2 draw which was a fair reflection of the game.

The final pool game was against a big Crawley them sponsored by the local McDonalds. A good game was enjoyed by both sets of coaches and supporters with the 'Borough "lovin' in" (sorry!) more at the end with a 3-1 victory that saw us top the group.

Our semi final was against probably the most improved club at our age this season - East Grinstead - who have some kids who look like they could play for the Colts!! EG took an early lead which we soon nullified and scored some great tries of our own to take a 3-1 lead. EG were not going to lie down though and scored two good tries to equalise. The final couple of minutes were tense with EG taking a 4-3 lead. We had a couple of chances to get back but managed to drop a couple of simple balls and get ripped when on the attack. Try as they might the boys couldn't get the breakthrough and went down to their only defeat of the day.

This squad was a mixture of experienced players, newer players, players coming back after a few weeks off or injured and went into the festival with a great team spirit, even if they had had very little time together beforehand. They did themselves proud and maintained our reputation of playing hard and fair but enjoying ourselves at every step of the way.

Well done boys!