H&B clinch Sussex Shield

They made hard work of victory though. At 29-0 up early in the second half, all appeared to be plain sailing for the William Parker School-based club but a combination of complacency on their part allied to a spirited Seaford revival ensured an unnecessarily fraught conclusion. Although Seaford scored all of their points in a 28-minute spell, there was always the feeling that H&B could step up a gear if they really had to. Sure enough, they did just that, spending the final few minutes deep in Seaford territory and looked as though they would actually increase their lead if the game had gone on much longer. But the way that Seaford scored three tries - the most H&B have conceded in a single game against Sussex League opposition since early November - and especially the uncharacteristic manner in which they fell off tackles for the first two must have had the alarm bells ringing in the blue and white camp. All's well that ends well though and at least the sloppiness set in after they'd manufactured a commanding lead rather than at the start. In an illustration of how far the team has progressed, manager Rob Hamilton was actually disappointed even though they won. He said: "Overall we're pleased we won but disappointed we didn't finish a little bit more strongly. There was no doubt the team relaxed at 29-0 up and thought we could just cruise home. I thought the game was won and I fear they (the players) did as well. We just seemed to lose the plot a bit and the concentration went a bit. I was certainly getting quite worried but I don't think we ever felt we could lose it. I thought they had a fantastic last half hour but we should not concede 21 points in such a short space of time." H&B's back division frequently scythed Seaford apart during a first half which they engineered a 22-0 lead that Hamilton was "quite happy with". A typical move through the backs sent Tom Brampton over in the left hand corner from where Paul Sandeman converted in the ninth minute. Man of the match Rob Sparks frequently punched holes in Seaford's defence and it was he who scored the second try after 32 minutes, surging over from seven metres after receiving a quick pass from scrum-half Craig Burgess. Sandeman, who between the tries kicked a penalty, added the conversion and another well-worked try in the sixth minute of stoppage time. Seaford fly-half Andrew Booth kicked the ball straight into the hands of Sparks who powered forward and off-loaded to the supporting Kit Claughton who touched down beneath the posts less than 90 seconds after the re-start. The rot began to set in though when Sandeman was penalised for not releasing in his 22 allowing Ben Cox a simple penalty to give Seaford hope. He added another 15 minutes later before Peter Joy, Gavin Hutt and Nick Everson all scored tries in the space of 14 minutes. But Cox missed all three conversions and a subsequent penalty which would have swung it their way.