After last weeks poor showing against Lewes, Crawley produced a good win on Saturday to get their season back onto track. Although the final score showed a comfortable win in the end, Crawley had to battle early on against a lively heath pack before the away team ran out of steam and Crawley pulled away.
Last week the Crawley pack had been mugged by Lewes and from the kick off this week it looked like they could suffer the same fate as the mobile Heath pack initially gave Crawley the run around. However it is very rare that a Crawley pack will go backwards two weeks on the trot and slowly but surly they started to grind the opposition down. Led by Travis Beaton and Steve Jones the Crawley pack started to provide the young Crawley backs with some decent ball and they were rewarded with a well taken try by the impressive Brian Hinojosa.
This set Crawley in motion and they surged forward with wave after wave of attack and it was not long before Ben Robson powered his way through the defence to keep his early season try tally ticking over.
As the game moved into the second half the away team started to fight back and they traded tries with Crawley to bring themselves to within 2 points of Crawley at 19 -17. This could have caused wide spread alarm and panic within the home team who had dominated the game for large passages, but this young side proved how resilient they are by again taking the game by the scruff of the neck.
By now the Heath team started to run out of steam and Crawley pinned them into their own half with forwards and backs combining to great effect. This pressure had to tell and sure enough a second try for Hinojosa and one for Barnes sealed the win 29-17.
This was a much more encouraging display and with other results going their way this still keeps Crawley very much in contention in the league. Crawley’s next league match is in two weeks time away to Rye with this week being an EDF Vase cup bye week.
Please click here to view images from the match. |
