YOUTH U16 NEWS/MATCH REPORTS

East Grinstead-U16 5 Crawley-U16 25

Crawley U16’s travelled away to East Grinstead on Sunday to play in the Sussex A league encounter. Previous games between these two teams through the age groups have proved to be eagerly contested games with East Grinstead having the better of the earlier games however Crawley narrowly won last year 12 – 10.

From the kick off Crawley tore into the Grinstead defence with the pack quickly establishing the advantage over the home teams at the break downs. It was impressive stuff with forwards and backs combining to force the home team back into their own half. It was surly only a matter of time for Crawley to get the first score and when they finally did it came in style.

From clean ball from a scrum on the half way line the Crawley backs executed a set move to perfection that saw the ball eventually moved to winger Matt Gosling who rounded the covering defence to score in the corner.

From the restart Crawley again piled the pressure with Dan Fleming and impressive Ollie Hall leading the way up front and Captain Josh Rodwell and centre Marc Davis controlling things in the backs. A well taken penalty by Joe Spurgeon was followed quickly by a great try by Ollie Hall when he stole the ball in a Grinstead ruck and sprinted clear to score in the corner.

So at half time Crawley had a 13- 0 lead and were seemingly cruising. East Grinstead made some changes at half time to both personal and their playing style as they started the second half trying to play the power game, using their big pack to drive the ball forward. This tactic took Crawley off guard and for a little while Crawley had to defend frantically as the home team surged forward. Grinstead were eventually rewarded for their efforts with a short range try by the powerful number 8. This stung Crawley back into life and almost immediately from the restart they turned the heat back on and powered back into the home teams half. This pressure quickly paid off when Chris Thompson dived over from close range to score hi first try for the club.

For the reminder of the game Crawley had complete control and when fly half William Jones switched play quickly down the blind side the ball found it’s way to Hall who scored his second try in the narrowest of spaces. This also gave Crawley the four try bonus point as well as securing the win. It had been a great performance by Crawley and it has given them real confidence going into their next league game against Worthing at home on Sunday 9th November.