At the crack of dawn a raiding party of 11 were dispatched from Brighton to the mud baths of Heathfield Rugby Club. As part of the team event to play for the Heathfield Hurricanes Cup we were having a training session, a couple of training games followed by a match with our hosts.

Thankfully the weather was almost kind to us and without the hindrance of thermals, fleeces and snow shoes we had a very enjoyable few hours hacking around in the mud.

More pleasingly all of the players were not put off by the foreign surroundings and took to the task very well.

Our first training game saw a few glimpses of some good basic running and passing skills and a creditable 3-3 draw. The try scorers being Andrew Read, Sam York & Tom Heath.

The second game saw a great effort on behalf of the defensive taggers who ensured the Heathfield ball was turned over 3 times and ran out comfortable winners 5-3 with scores from Jake Hawes, Andrew Read(2) & Tom Heath(2)

The match for the team trophy event staggered for a while as some lost sight of the pitch lines in the mud but having found our bearings and including the best passage of passing from over half of the team in 1 move we ran out winners 4 tries to 2. The scorers being Tom Heath, Frank Chambers & 2 from Toby Smith.

Without a shadow of doubt all the players took something from the training ground onto the pitch today, they ensured that everyone had a part to play and they didn't let their team mates down, we can all be very proud of them.

The trophy was gratefully collected by Laura Bird on behalf of her chuffed team mates which we hope to be able to show to the rest of the group in the near future.

The advantage of being able to self demonstrate within an age group will hopefully allow us to bring some more of our age group, when we can play some training games at home in the next 3 or 4 weeks on the ATP.

Greg