Men's 1s vs St Francis 1

Still reeling from the disappointment of last weeks top table clash, Hailsham made the cold journey to Burgess Hill to take on St Francis with a renewed motivation to get the campaign back on track.

Bouyed by the addition of some returning faces, there was a renewed calm around the warm-up but it was obvious that the team were ready and up for this one.

The game started well with our back 4 of Humber, Headey, Freeland-Jones and Ruthven easily working around the oppositions press and feeding through to the midfield to cause havok. Some strong, confident wide play from C.Hayes and Higgs, coupled with powerful direct runs from Rham and J.Hayes went on to win some early short corners and scoring opportunites (as well as a strong shout for a p-flick that was turned down) with two of these neatly converted by Higgs ghosting in at the back post and Gurr deflecting in an arrow of a cross from Humber to give us an early 2-0 lead.

First half ended with Hailsham’s press forcing St Francis into a more direct play and some accurate long passing caused a bit more trouble for our back 4. Most of these swept up at the back, a few by an adventurous Moore in goal who fancied a run this week and as a result is your author today.

Unfortunately two of these long balls snuck through giving St Francis 2 easy goals, that sandwiched a second of the day from Higgs leaving the score 3-2 at half time.

With some rousing words at half (“They’re being mean. You're too nice. Be more mean.”) Hailsham went back out looking to take control. Which they did. Bear with me with the order of these ones….This might have led to Freeland-Jones being assaulted off the ball. It's ok though, the umpire told Hailsham to calm down........no card or free hit given.

Headey and RM Agnew combine allowing Agnew to slot away for his 2^nd first team goal of the season

Having shown his scoring prowess in the second team in previous weeks, a series of short corners eventually had Ruthven converting not once but twice at the back post

In this time Man of The Match Higgs appeared once again to complete his hatrick.

And finally it what must have been injury time (the umpries stopped the clock 5mins early….) J.Hayes weaves through a number of defenders to cap an impressive performance with the score finishing 8-2 to Hailsham.

Motm Josh Higgs, hatrick hero.

Dotd Ryan Moore. Bit too adventurous and finding himself outside of the D a few too many times……