A bad day at the office for Hastings and Bexhill RFC

This truly was a miserable afternoon, the weather was a continuous drizzle, the rugby was unentertaining and full of mistakes and the result for Hastings and Bexhill was a bad one.

On paper this was a game Hastings should have won convincingly; however on the day the home side could not get out of first gear until late in the second half.

Brockleians finished the first half nine nil in the lead, all the points coming from penalties awarded for offside. Once again H&B fielded a side showing several changes; Matt Stringer played his first game of the season in the second row, Jack Clarke and Wes Lorman returned to the pack, George Feely played on the wing and Lewis Sealy was switched to the centre.

Throughout the first half Hastings could not string a run of play together, this situation was not helped by Clarke and Lorman having to leave the field with injuries. Leighton Mapstone came into the front row and played well. Sam Surridge took up the scrum half duties and Isaac Wales moved to wing forward for Lorman.

The second half opened in much the same vein; another penalty awarded for offside! Brockleians had a very good kicker he slotted all of his penalties and put the H&B defence under pressure kicking from the hand.

Gradually Hastings and Bexhill came back into the game and started to build some pressure on the visitors defence. From a 5m penalty, the ball was quickly fed out to the backs and Joe Field burst through the defence to touch down near the posts for Coulter to convert 7-12.

Maybe this was the start of the comeback the home supporters were hoping for! But a very long restart landed between two players and bounced into touch. The home defence was under unnecessary pressure; from the line out the ball came to the No10 who very cleverly chipped the ball over the line for the centre to run onto and touch down. The try was converted and instead of building on their own score H&B were again twelve points behind.

With only minutes remaining Jacob McDonagh was replaced by Kaleb Wiggan in the front row. Hastings were now playing well and had the visitors under pressure, Isaac Wales scored a good try to secure the bonus point loss but there was not enough time remaining to do more.

There were some bizarre refereeing decisions but these were not the reason for this defeat. H&B conceded far too many penalties and coupled with handling errors the game was a very disjointed affair and the home side were frustrated in their attempts to get going by a big Brockleians scrum who spoiled a lot of open play.

Hastings and Bexhill return to action on Novemb9 er away to top of the table Old Gravesendians.