H&B continue knockout form

The latest success was a comfortable 39-0 defeat of Crowborough in the Sussex Shield semi-final.

A few cobwebs were lingering around from the two-week festive break but they still did more than enough to secure a final date with Seaford, surprise victors over Horsham, on Sunday March 21.

They are yet to concede a point from two matches in the competition (they've scored 115) and this win takes them into the more prestigious Sussex Trophy where they have a bye into the quarter-finals at which stage the likes of Haywards Heath and Worthing enter the fray.

Manager Rob Hamilton said: "It was a lot more comfortable than the league game (which they won 20-5 last month). We hit the ground running and there was never any doubt. We were a bit rusty, we didn't fire on all cylinders but we were still comfortably too good for Crowborough. The scoreline was a completely fair reflection of the game though, in fact it could have been more - we just cruised home.

"I thought it was a very good performance in the fact that we hadn't played for two weeks. I thought the first half was excellent. In my own mind I felt that we eased off in the second half. We scored as many tries after half time but the element of control wasn't so great.

"We tried to move the ball where we could, I think we tried to play a broad game. We did drive through the forwards as well and I think we're a good enough team now to play the game in various ways."

H&B came out of the blocks quickly and a Kit Claughton break released Ben Campbell who sped over out wide within five minutes.

Paul Sandeman then kicked a penalty and two further tries, both of which Sandeman converted, were supplied by the bulldozing Rob Sparkes to open up a commanding 22-0 interval lead.

Paul Flood continued his fine recent form at number eight by crossing for the next score before fly-half Claughton scampered through to collect his own intuitive grubber kick to net the try his performance merited. Sandeman converted that and "captain courageous" Neil Redman charged over from 20 metres out to finish it off.

H&B return to league action on Saturday January 10 with a trip to Norfolk Arms.