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Saturday 7th October
Crawley3rd’s 24 Reigate3rd’s 19
Crawley entertained Reigate in a friendly to hopefully gel the team together after a testing start to the season. It also gave a couple of players a chance to return to action after injury and press for first team places in the coming weeks. Captain Adam Tyas led his Crawley side forward in the early exchanges but good defensive play from Reigate thwarted any chances of giving the fast Crawley backs any space. The game ebbed and flowed in this fashion for the first 15 minutes without either team managing to put more than three phases of play together. Eventually Crawley’s physical edge made the difference as Colossus Rob Dowling broke two tackles and chipped ahead. Winger Steve Ives chased and forced the fumble from Reigate’s full back, giving Ali Moffatt the chance to scoop the loose ball up and dive over. The conversion was pulled horribly wide as Leyshon slipped but Crawley led 5-0. Reigate then started to run the ball into the midfield and had a good spell of play finished by their no.13 stepping past a stumbling Paul Chapman to score. The conversion was made to make it 5-7. Straight from the restart a missed Crawley tackle enabled Reigate to move the ball to the halfway line. A lovely pop up pass out of the next tackle saw Reigate’s no.13 surge through to score a second and the conversion made it 5-14. Moffatt was replaced after injuring himself making that tackle in Reigate’s scoring move, as was prop Tomkins and it took some time for Crawley to adjust. Reigate then manoeuvred themselves to within striking distance and a surging run resulted in a third try out wide. Half time arrived with Crawley 5-19 down and with much to do.
The start of the second half saw Crawley change their pattern slightly and they started to get the ball wide to the speedy Ives, McCormack and Okweyo who made inroads into the stubborn Reigate defence. However the final pass was still lacking and Reigate were able to clear their lines each time from the breakdown in their 22. Props Sparkes and Gibson started to turn the screw in the tight and with an unlimited amount of ball from Lee and Bloxham at the line-out, gaps began to appear in the Reigate wall. Trevillion and Rodgers started turning the ball over in Reigate’s 22 and with the speedy hands of Dan Chapman, quick ball was provided to Crawley’s backs. Eventually Fitzpatrick chipped into Reigate’s goal area where Leyshon was able to touchdown. The conversion shaved the outside of the post and with just over 15 minutes left the score was 10-19.
Crawley then introduced veteran Grantham to the fray in a last ditch effort to win the game and it reaped dividends immediately. Crawley’s forwards started to offload the ball in the tackle moving the ball quickly into Reigate’s 22 and a great step inside from now centre, Fitzpatrick, allowed him to dart through from 15 metres. Leyshon made no mistake with the conversion to make it 17-19.
Reigate panicked a little at the re-start when they failed to kick the ball 10 metres and Crawley had the perfect position from the middle of the pitch to make one last assault. Chapman’s floated kick into the corner and good chasing from McCormack and Ives put Reigate on the defensive again at the lineout. Reigate’s clearance failed to make touch and Crawley put four strong phases of play together before the superb Dan Chapman put Grantham in space to surge beneath the posts from 5 metres. Leyshon completed the conversion to make the score 24-19. The final whistle sounded at the first breakdown from the restart and Crawley had completed a great comeback against a very resolute and tough Reigate team. Crawley 3’s now look forward to games against Shoreham and Bognor and with players returning from injury should quickly improve their league position.
Crawley Team; Tomkins (Sparkes), Tyas, Gibson (Grantham), Bloxham, Lee, Rodgers, Trevillion, Dowling, Dan Chapman, P. Chapman, Ives, Leyshon, Moffatt (Gregory), Okweyo (McCormack), Fitzpatrick.
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