This week the lovely Horsebridge Recreation ground played host to the first local derby of the season with Heathfield.

Within minutes the occasionally friendly encounter had descended to bitching and niggling that has become common place on football fields around the country, to liven things up the occasional punch even got thrown, a fact that Ollie Land can testify to claiming that his ears were still ringing a few days after the match.

The local rivalry proved to be a slightly one sided affair with the Heathfield back row firmly dominating the game, their blindside flanker and no. 8 proved to be an awesome combination that sucked in all of the Hellingly defence before shipping the ball out wide to the (mostly) youthful backs who took full opportunity of the then stretched defence to score. On the rare occasions they didn’t pull the defence in the ex Haywards Heath 1^st team No. 8 ran straight through the helpless Hellingly defence.

There was little to celebrate for the home team apart from Callum crossing for what was a consolation try. Milly added a conversion and a penalty to top Loonie points up to double figures.

Final score

Hellingly 2 – 10

Heathfield & Waldron 3 - 41

The Loonies were left in a state of disbelief after being outclassed by a quality outfit. The loss means that Hellingly stay rooted to the bottom of the table with the prospect of a home friendly against Cinque Ports next week a marked improvement is required if we are to get that elusive first win of the season!

No man of the match award this weekend.

Team: 1) Paul Jarvis 2) Dennis Gower 3) Jim Bedford 4) Paul Ripley 5) Steve Doyle 6) Adam Jordan (c) 7) Ollie Land 8) Steve Kirk 9) Ben Hodd 10) Dave Millward 11) Dylan 12) Ron Francis 13) Jon Cooley 14) Callum Forsyth 15) Chris McGowan 16) Paul Tester 17) Chris Sherrard