Eastbourne 1st (26) V Seaford 1st team (7)

Eastbourne, off the back of two wins, were full of confidence and fancied another big win. However, Seaford had different ideas and really went at Eastbourne. The game was moved to an incredibly small pitch which suited Seaford’s short passing and direct running game. It didn’t suit Eastbourne’s fast and wide running game. But that is something Eastbourne had to adapt to, and with a superior scrum giving them an edge, they eventually got a very well-earned bonus point win.
Eastbourne have been part of some fast-flowing games so far this season. Unfortunately, with the very small pitch and tricky wind, this game started and ended very scrappy and incredibly slow.
Eastbourne had to battle for every inch of the pitch, and after some very some powerful runs, led by Montes in the tight and Bianchi out wide, Harry Gibbons received a pass inside following a break down the wing to cross for Eastbourne’s first try with Aaron Hossack kicking the conversion. Five minutes later and, Eastbourne finding space again out wide, saw Bianchi cross for his sixth try in two games.
Seaford responded with a lot of pressure on Eastbourne in their 22 and a strong team try was completed with a good solo run in from the Seaford Centre.
The half time score was 7-12 in Eastbourne’s favour.
The second half, much like the first, started scrappy and the referee, clearly frustrated with the constant flair ups in the tight, eventually had enough and gave a yellow card to Josh Buckwell for retaliation. Shortly after, Ben Perrott was also yellow carded for a no arm tackle. Seaford had lots of possession in this period but could not quite make it count.
Eastbourne, now restored to 15 players, got themselves together for Mason Dowle to score a screamer of a try. This capped off an excellent game for Mason starting his first game of the season. Aaron Hossack kicked the conversion.
The next 15 minutes was played in the middle of the pitch and was quite uneventful until Ben Perrott went on one of his mazy runs and jinked his way to the try line to secure the bonus point. Aaron Hossack again kicked the conversion to secure the win 7-26 to Eastbourne.
In total, Eastbourne RFC had 58 players representing the club across three sides this weekend. An impressive achievement!
Next week is a rest week before Eastbourne face Burgess Hill at home on the 15th of October.

Chris Hosking
Joe Bettles
Alun Cranch
Josh Buckwell
Luke Thomas
Ryan Shields
Owen Davies
Jeremy Montes
Harrison Gibbons
Aaron Hossack
Ian Padget
Ronnie Dorrey-Palmer
Ben Perrott
Gianluca Bianchi
Mason Dowle
Dan Keen
Vincent Morse
Martial Chaput