Holbrook 33- Brighton 35

SUSSEX SPITFIRE LEAGUE 1
HOLBROOK -V- BRIGHTON 2ND
33 -V- 35
At the end of an exhilarating match that contained all the elements to entertain and thrill Steve Heaton the Holbrook Coach did not know whether to be proud of his teams fighting comeback or annoyed that they threw it all away in the 10 minutes either side of half time.
To say that the Holbrook players were gutted, despondent and frustrated is a considerable understatement and only underlined the joy and relief of the Brighton team as the final whistle went as they were strenuously defending their try line.
From the kick off Holbrook started well and began to put together phase after phase of good solid attacking rugby. Good tactical kicking by James Brown and Alex Meredith ensured that there was a fine balance to Holbrook's ball use to vary their plays. With Brighton also looking to play an expansive game we knew we had a great afternoons watching in store. An early try by the tireless try machine that is Ash sporne was soon followed by a bullocking run from close quarters by Darran Shadbolt to put Holbrook into a comfortable 10 - 0 lead.
As Brighton fought to get back into the game their kicker showed his worth by converting a fine penalty to take the score to 10-3, it was now that the Holbrook wheels fell off, big time! From the restart, the Brighton number 7 collected the ball and evaded several despairing tackles, avoided any semblance of cover defence and galloped over the line to make the score 10-8. Another appalling restart saw Brighton mount a number of attacks before a fortuitous fly hack cleared the Holbrook line up to the half way. Relieved the Holbrook players went to sleep as Brighton took a quick throw and crossed the field to score in the far corner with only As Sporne and Chris Collier in pursuit. 10 - 15 to Brighton and Holbrook in disarray. A penalty by James Brown reduced the lead just on half time, and it looked as though Holbrook had weathered the storm, when in fact they had just entered the eye!
The second half brought more misery for Holbrook as they soon lost hooker Tim Bell and Centre Nick Holt to injury necessitating key positional changes. Exacerbating their predicament they also failed to respond to the team talk and proceeded to leak 2 penalties and two more converted tries to Brighton to fall into a 13-32 losing position. At this stage it just looked as though it was a question of how many? for Brighton as they dominated the game and Holbrook looked lost and dispirited.
Following on from recent game scripts, Holbrook players suddenly managed to drag themselves up and started to apply pressure to Brighton and were soon rewarded with a try by tireless Scrum Half Chris Collier who took advantage of poor defence to squeeze over from a ruck. A conversion from James Brown added the extra points, 18 - 32.
Rejuvinated Holbrook now began to play with the style and verve shown in the first quarter of the match and were continually applying pressure to Brighton, however, a rare excursion to the Holbrook half saw Brighton leave with a further 3 points courtesy of a well taken penalty. But Holbrook refused to lie down and Ash Sporne scored his second try taking the score to 23 - 35.
Holbrook now realised that they could win and piled on the pressure, getting rewarded with a penalty from Brown and a further try from Mike Mann to put them within a couple of points. However, with seconds left Ash Sporne was stopped on the line as he looked certain to score and the game was over leaving Brighton victorious and Holbrook despondent. 33-35.
This was not the first match where poor, almost non xistent first up tackling, poor decision making with ball in hand near the try line and a severe loss of concentration for large periods of the match have entered the Holbrook repertoire. Coach Steve Heaton must be frustrated enormously by a team who can play as well as they did in the first and last 15 minutes of a match and yet self destruct for much of the game