With Sussex duties taking 11 players, a number of players struggling with injury and school rugby taking its toll, it was good to host a Heathfield development side at Waterhall.

Pure stats showed Brighton as having 30 players unavailable for one reason or another and when 3 players had to call off on the morning of the game having gone down with a vomiting bug the Brighton Band of Blues Brothers were down to 14 men, 6 of whom were front row and were always going to be up against it.

Special mention to Noah Bailey for making a huge tackle count at open side, Scotty for pulling on the 12 shirt (it's only a 1, in front of the normal 2 Scott!), Sam Shah getting out of bed to find himself in the 2nd row and Theo standing in at 13.

Heathfield always had a player advantage and when Gabby took a knock on the head, in the process of scoring, the Blues were well up against it. Even more so when the same thing happened to Illy with 15 minutes to go.

However, great team work, commitment to the cause and a never say die attitude saw the team run out winners from what was described as an 'end to end game'.... well done.

MoM - Lucas Pierce-Watkins

Scorers:

First Half

Heathfield 0 v 5
Illy 5 Oly 0 5 v 5
Theo 5 Olly 0 10 v 5
Heathfield 10 v 10
Gabe 5 Frankie 0 15 v 10
Joey 5 Frankie 0 20 v 10

Second Half

Heathfield 20 v 17
Heathfield 20 v 24
Theo 5 Olly 2 27 v 24
Joey 5 Olly 0 32 v 24
Heathfield 32 v 31