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SENIOR RUGBY
A mixed weekend for G’s, as trys for Jake, Luke, Chris and Ted were not quite enough as KCS took the spoils at Saint Hill on Saturday. The game ending with the scoreboard showing 29 - 33. The two bonus points will be crucial later on in the season.

To see Bens pics of the match, click here: Match pics

Meanwhile on pitch 2, our 2’s took on high fliers Eastbourne sporting their new kit, sponsored by W&P Partners. A strong squad took all the points from our Sussex rivals, as scores from Ryan, Will, Fin, Mark and Sam ensured the final tally stood at  29 - 22.

Disappointingly, Hove couldn’t muster a side to face our Ladies in the Papa Johns Cup. This does mean we are in the next round which will be an away trip to Old Ruts in December.

Next weekend is a rest for our senior sides, as England get their Autumn Series underway against The All Blacks!

JUNIOR RUGBY
Sunday 27th. With the autumn sun rising over our mentor, we saw the first of our two home junior festivals at HQ. The U7s,8s, and 9s hosted over 30 teams from 11 different clubs. After a week of typical October weather, once again our hardworking groundstaff had done an amazing job of keeping our pitches available to play on.

We woke on Sunday to find the weather gods looking down on us. We were treated to blue skies and warm sunshine. This always makes for a more enjoyable day when players and parents alike don't have to huddle away shivering under gazebos.

The section coaches all did an amazing job of juggling the playing schedules with the inevitable last-minute changes and tweaks from dropouts. The U9s even adapted their schedule on the morning of the festival to accommodate a team from Horsham who were not expected!

With our neighbours hosting their own big annual event over the weekend, our overflow car park option was unavailable and it was going to be a challenge. We had a few of our neighbours' guests camping in the car park who got a lovely early morning call with an eviction notice!

Despite the repeated messages to car share being ignored, we had several volunteers arriving nice and early to manage the parking, who did an amazing job of packing in as many cars as possible into the limited spaces we have. And what a brilliant job they did even having to put up with abuse and threatening behaviour from some of the guests. My personal thanks to you all for your calm and patient handling of these unnecessary situations and giving up your time.

Emma Poulton and Lucy Goldsworthy manned the entrance post all morning taking the entrance payment and dealing out programmes. They also did a magnificent job and sadly also had to take moans from a minority of visitors. My thanks to you both (and Harry too) for your efforts and for staying calm. All of you out front did EGRFC proud.

U7
Eager to get their competitive season underway, U7’s welcomed a number of sides on Sunday. After taking the tough decision to not travel to Worthing the week before, it was fair to say everybody was keen for the first games to kick off.

East Grinstead fielded two mixed ability sides - “Lightning” and “Thunder”.

Last minute issues with schedules nearly caused Coach Matt to consider tackling practice with his laptop! Despite some no shows and two teams arriving unannounced, by 10am we had an Excel Spreadsheet of the schedule entitled “Version 6_final_final_usethisone” and the teams finally ready to kick off.

Lightning lived up to their names with an electric start from twins Charlie and Elliott - Charlie bagging a hat trick of tries with some excellent footwork around a well organised Haywards Heath team and cementing his place as Lightning’s top scorer for the day.

This was followed by a great team performance against Crawley - with another try for Charlie before Thomas opened his account after good support work led to him scoring after some last ditch tackles from Haywards Heath. However the try of the game goes to Huxley Swann who picked up a loose ball in his own half and, despite a number of defenders, used some electric pace to score in the corner. He definitely didn’t learn that from his Dad…

The match against Crowborough saw Lightning continue some excellent attacking work: Alexander scoring from close range, Eddie touching down after a great solo effort and finally Ollie scoring after running nearly the length of the pitch.

It was the last game that saw Lightning step up a gear, not only in attack but pleasingly in defence, with some fast tagging leaving Lewes under pressure, allowing both Eddie and Ollie to capitalise on dropped passes and run in more tries - Eddie finished the game with a Hat-trick. Dillon also added to the onslaught with two strong runs down the left to score.

Thunder had a more conservative start, originally apprehensive against Crawley 2s, until Finlay decided enough was enough and propelled East Grinstead forward with 3 individual tries that cut through the Crawley defenders.

The second game against Edenbridge was a much more open affair with attacking displays from Hudson and Ben, both scoring and backing up the defensive effort against some stronger runners in a very good Edenbridge team. Henry also exploited width to open his account with a hat-trick of tries.

The game against Heathfield saw defences come out on top. Both teams were applying the pressure and none more so than Elliot, at one point tagging 3 attackers in a row and stopping a certain try. An excellent team try saw great passes from Hudson and Henry to set Ben up in the corner, before Hudson himself went on to score two tries from some nifty sidestepping.

The game against Haywards Heath saw sides evenly matched but the standout was the defensive effort by Zachary, constantly tracking back to make tackles where Haywards Heath thought they’d broken through. An excellent solo run by Ben, showing some lightning quick pace down the wing was the highlight of the attacking efforts.

The penultimate match against Crawley saw some tired legs on the field after a long day, however without a doubt the highlight was seeing Thunder’s Noah being in support of forward runs, collecting a difficult bouncing ball and beating two defenders to score his first East Grinstead try, earning the biggest cheer of the day.

A try fest awaited Thunder in the final game against Edenbridge, showing they had learnt lessons from their earlier game against this strong opposition. A brace of tries from Henry, Zachary and Hudson - the latter ensuring his position as the king of the sidestep (and even managing to wriggle free of three defenders whilst on the floor to score) meant that East Grinstead finished the day on a high.

U8s
The under 8’s had a great turnout of teams from across sussex & Kent - 14 in total!
The kids are getting used to the much bigger pitches allowing some great running rugby. We’re also seeing some great passing instead of taking the tackles. It’s brilliant to see them all developing.

The warmer weather was also certainly welcomed (by the parents & coaches!) and made a brilliant day even better!

U9s
On Sunday, three full teams from the U9s went up against teams from across Sussex and Kent at our eagerly anticipated home festival.

On a very warm and sunny day, the boys raised the temperature further as they treated their highly vocal supporters to some red hot offloads, explosive tackles, and blistering bursts of speed. They attacked each of their five games with trademark grit and determination and showed they are among the very best teams in their age group anywhere in the county.

The boys will now be consolidating and building on all the skills they’ve displayed in their first three festivals as we enter a period of training and inter-club fixtures over November and December. We look forward to emerging even stronger and better in the new year!

Ignoring the few; the majority of our visitors were vocal in praise of the event and reporting that both players, coaches and parents had had a brilliant day, adding it was well run and organised too.

We thank all our visiting clubs for making it a wonderful day, and we look forward to welcoming you back.

Thank you to all the volunteers who made the day possible. Community clubs like EGRFC are 100% dependent on our club members giving up their time so that we can run events like this for our kids to enjoy. We appreciate that it means sacrificing your enjoyment of watching your little ones in action but we just can't do it without you.

Some shout outs to Sarah and Kelly who ran the club bar brilliantly, Alison Fraser and her team running the Junior Clubhouse. Dan Arnold who does so much that it is difficult to know how to thank him. Olly Johnson and Yas, Steve & Louisa Floodgate, Georgie Knight. All of the previously mentioned gave their time despite not even having any family involved in the games. Dan & Emma Poulton who did so much to help with the organisation. Matt Barnes who had to deal with so many schedule changes he was left in the clubhouse on Sunday morning with his laptop doing last-minute changes. Tim Morris who had schedule changes to do whilst suffering from a concussion from the previous day (not that he remembers this!!).

You all made it happen and it was brilliant!

Thank you.

INTERMEDIATE RUGBY
On Sunday our U12 Girls (Ella, Beth and Isla) joined Pulborough to take on Horsham at Pulborough.

It was a great game played in lovely weather and Pulborough, with our girls, came away with a resounding 60-30 win against Horsham with all the East Grinstead girls scoring tries.

The coaches and parents couldn’t be more proud.

Lewes U14’s 0 - G’s 62
The U14’s were away to Lewes on Sunday. After a tough start to the season we managed to find our rhythm and get a 0-62 win over the combined teams of Lewis and Uckfield. With a hatrick coming from Jack Brown and Leighton Langridge getting 4 and then Joe Davis, Zac Grub, Tommy Webster, Callum Weeden and Jenson Cooper-Arnold all getting on the score sheet, we couldn’t pick just one coaches player, so Leighton and Jack are gonna share the award this week as they both played exceptional rugby their support play was immense and their work rate was second to none.

It seems the lads are starting to really put there training into practice by using the backs to really make an impact and still using our fire power through the middle.

G’s Colts 35 - Brighton 19
East Grinstead Colts secured a convincing 35-19 victory over Brighton U18 in an action-packed encounter at East Grinstead’s home ground. The match showcased the skill and determination of both teams, with East Grinstead’s strong performance ultimately sealing their win.

A week which the team worked on their support in attack truly paid, as the boys worked hard for each other in what’s only their second game together for most of them. With a team comprising of 13 forwards and 3 backs it was always going to be a match won up front.

With Brighton striking for the first points, the team didn’t let that put them off the game plan, and soon found themselves steam rolling forward with Nathan, Thomas Nasta and Thomas MCM making big bouldering runs around the breakdown it wasn’t long before the Colts found themselves scoring next and getting the try they deserved, with their tails now up and a roaring home crowd they soon realised what hard straight running could do.

The backs, given the conditions were not getting much service, however defensively were solid as a rock, kept pinning the Brighton colts back into their own half with very good tactical kicking, it again wasn’t long before Grinstead found themselves under the posts for another score.

The game swung back and forth between the two sides until G’s found their groove and soon started comfortably holding the lead.

With 5 tries being scored by the Grinstead team and all conversions being made by Ralph Harris who was outstanding with his boot, and Brighton getting 3 tries and 2 conversion. The Grinstead Colts have managed their first win of the season!

I’m sure the boys will look to build on this performance as they continue their season, while Brighton will undoubtedly take valuable lessons from this match.

SUNSHINE SEVENS PRESENTATION PRE-MATCH MEAL (16th November)
Saturday 16th November will be big day at EGRFC – The Sunshine Sevens Committee will be donating to this year’s chosen charities at the pre-match lunch. This is always a special day for the club as it shows the on-going support that the EGRFC gives in the local community. We hope as many as possible can join us for this “special event”.

On top of that we have both 1st and 2nd teams at home. 1st XV v Trinity and 2nd XV v Shoreham plus England v South Africa…..

This annual event always sells out, so please book your lunch reservation asap. Please email to events@egrfc.com

HALLOWEEN
Our halloween social was a spooktackular night! Guests arrived in some creative costumes and some less so. Newly weds, John & Hayley and Max & Emma took the prizes!!

Drinks were flowing but no (real) blood was spilt. Chilling tunes set the mood for some creepy dance moves. The night left everyone thrilled and eager for next year’s haunt. Thanks for supporting.

SACKVILLE RUGBY ACADEMY
In September we are launching our new Rugby Academy. As an enrichment opportunity, our students will receive specialist coaching every week, as well as completing qualifications such as first aid and coaching.

Come and chat with us on Thursday 7th November, 5.30 - 7.30pm at our Sixth Form opening evening at Sackville School!

200 CLUB
Well done to our October Winners!!

1st Prize R Hawkins £125
2nd Prize G. Jones £50
3rd Prize Kevin Sexton £25

The Club has decided that to make things easier for all, future payments will be made directly into winning members bank accounts. We have several missing addresses in our database, so to facilitate this could all members of the 200 Club confirm their email addresses to our 200 Club guru, Colin at: colin.byron.uk@gmail.com
Thank you!!

To find out more about EGRFC 200 Club, or to join, click here: 200 Club

OTHER NEWS
If you have any news about any aspect of our rugby family here at East Grinstead, get involved and email m.marriott@btconnect.com. See you next week!!