Sills scores six tries in H&B romp

Hastings & Bexhill Rugby Club's six tryscorers in the 83-14 win at home to Sheppey - Tom Waring, Tim Sills, Calvin Crosby-Clarke, Eliot Parry, Ben Petty and Tom Vincent. Picture courtesy Peter Knight

H&B were in dominant form as they hammered bottom-of-the-table Sheppey 83-14 in a one-sided London Three South East fixture at Ark William Parker Academy.

H&B started the game at a great pace and were soon dominating the visitors in every department. Scrum-half Eliot Parry opened the scoring with a try under the posts following great work from second row Jimmy Adams.

From this point on the game was one-way traffic. Within the first 13 minutes H&B had scored the bonus point fourth try, with some excellent work from Sills and Tom Waring.

Sheppey, whose game was based on physical and aggressive rugby, scored a hotly-disputed try near the posts, but went in at half time 54-7 down. Sills and Waring each scored first half hat-tricks, with prop Tom Vincent adding to the tally.

Adams and Parry received yellow cards for separate acts of retaliation to provocation from the visitors’ forwards, so for 20 minutes of the second half H&B were playing with only 14 men.

The game, nonetheless, continued in much the same vein as the first half. Sills scored another hat-trick, one of them the result of a flying 70-metre sprint to score under the posts, to finish with six tries in all - a feat of speed, strength and skill which is rarely seen at any level of rugby.

Calvin Crosby-Clarke and Ben Petty added to the scoring with well-taken tries, and the increasingly reliable boot of fly-half Bruce Steadman kicked nine conversions in all.

The whole team played well and the forwards’ domination of the game allowed the backs to run their moves. Passes went to hand and tries came at regular intervals.

There were outstanding performances from Nick van Herpen, John Hanagarth and full-back Harry Walker, but special mention must be made of the fantastic contribution made by Adams, who won the ball in lineouts, rucks, mauls and loose play - his work is an inspiration to the whole club.

H&B coach Chris Brooks used his squad well and rotated his players throughout the game, although Joe Umpleby suffered another injury setback in his first season as captain with a nasty cut to the side of his head.