Friendly
Sheppey 92 vs 0 Crawley
With Crawley dropping out of the league, Sheppey were looking at a blank fixture week. However Crawley in great spirit honoured the fixture as a friendly, which was welcomed and gave the opportunity to blood some youngsters and trial some positional changes.
Despite the first 5 minutes being keenly fought by both teams, Sheppeys superior firepower and physicality made this a one-sided affair running in 14 tries, but respect to Crawley who never stopped battling, and in particular their spirited no. 9 who single-handedly caused problems for the visitors all afternoon.
From a stolen lineout, quick hands through the backs saw Robinson break through, to offload to lock Smith to cross the line. Converted by Frostick, whose 11 conversions from 14 and a try saw his personal haul for the game to an impressive 27 points.
Robinson set up the 2nd try also, running straight on an inside line, his offload to supporting flanker Marzetti cut the defence open.
With confidence brimming, the ball was kept alive through the backs, and Davies hanging out wide was just too strong for the defence and touched down in the corner.
Probably the best try of the game followed, a well worked move saw Eley and Varker interlink well using a combination of passes to get over the whitewash.
Centre Bright was next to score, with good work across the park and several punching runs, the ball was recycled quickly and he latched on to the overlap.
No 10 Allum got on to the scoresheet with a mazy solo run through the 22, to be swiftly followed by skipper Kelly to score the 7th try. In the last play of the half, winger Marsden was rewarded for good support play to touch down out wide, and Sheppey led at half-time 50-0.
In what had become a one-sided affair, the Islanders lost their focus after the break, and Crawley dominated possession and territory for 15 minutes. They unfortunately knocked-on over the line, and Eley making amends for his missed tackle, scooped the ball up and ran half the length of the pitch, to offload to 17 year old lock Golding who capped an impressive debut full of creative running lines and physicality hitting rucks, with a 40 metre run under the posts.
Davies collected his brace of tries with an intercept, whilst Mills got in to the action with good support play to touch down for a 5 pointer.
3 solo tries in the last 5 minutes by Robinson, Varker and Frostick, against a defence which had nothing left, saw the scores through to a final 92-0 result.
All thoughts switch to next weeks crucial league match against Folkestone, kick-off at home 3PM.
