FIRST TEAM MATCH REPORT

Crawley Down   0 - 5    Rustington

Rustington finished Crawley Downs season with a 5 goal thrashing to embarrass the hosts. Just over a week ago, Crawley Down were promotion candidates but after 5 goals from Peacehaven last week ended their hopes they mustn’t have expected another drubbing at the hands of the Blues.

Rustington started the better for the two sides and the lack of confidence at the moment for both sides was very telling. Although the Anvils lacklustre play was expected after their hopes were ended last week, the Blues too needed a boost after failing to score from open play since the home defeat of Pease Pottage. Gareth Davies went for a wing attacking 3-5-2 formation with Joe Lewis Cumber and Ryan Morten as wing backs and Lee Gibbs in a free role in between the midfield three and front two.

The attacking formation made for a strange start for the blues with their play at times, slow but methodical and it seemed as though the blues were trying too hard to pass the ball into the net, especially as the reds keeper was in fine form. It almost seemed as though Rustington would be frustrated with a 0-0 draw. In the 11th minute, however, this wasn’t to be as the ball was stroked up the left hand side of the reds half.

Lee Gibbs took a lofted pass from the left after some neat interplay from Rustington. As the ball floated to him around 20 yards out in line with the right stick, he belted a speculative scissor kick which at first looked to have been a bit wild. But the Blues travelling fans were jubilant when the ball struck the ground 6 yards in front of the keeper and bounced high into the top corner of the net, beating the vertically challenged keeper for height. A deserved goal for all the blues probing play.

Unfortunately on the 12th minute, a rather late challenge on James Bennett seemed to end his season as he limped off the pitch with an ankle injury to be replaced by Sean Duffy. Gareth Davies moved Ryan Morten into Bennetts position and Duffy slotted into right wing-back.

To be honest, many in the ground (including stalwart Anvils) thought Gibbs’ goal would be the sign that the floodgates were opening up, but Crawley Downs numbers 4 & 5 kept their heads and stopped the blues from getting much further than mid-way through the red half for the rest of the first 45 minutes despite Rustington completely dominating play.

I counted only three or four of their players who seemed to want to give Gareths boys a game, one of which (number 3) seemed to be a little bit too “up-for-it” as he was warned on at least three occasions to calm himself down or find his way into the man in blacks book.

Half-time 0-1

The blues came out for the second half with excellent buoyancy despite The Anvils seeming to be coming out for a funeral.

The first 30 minutes of the second half could almost be a carbon copy of the last 30 minutes of the first half. Patient probing play from the blues with a few shots on the red goal and the odd smattering from Crawley Down towards the Blues half, quickly cut out by the blue defensive trio.

If ever the expression “A Game of Two Halves” was ever true, then this was the day. Andy Smarts’ anvil-annoying persistence paid off in the 75th minute when he opened up Crawley Down and smashed his cross-goal shot into the left hand side of their net, a superb goal.

This was the moment that Crawley Down were dreading. In the last 15 minutes of play the Blues just wouldn’t stop attacking, and Lee Gibbs added a 35 yard pitch skimmer to his tally (80th minute) and then rounded off his day by completing his hat-trick a minute later when Richie Hellen split the reds defence with a sublime pass to Lee who then exchanged a one-two with the ever vibrant Smart and slotted home for the fourth of the day.

Steve Kirkham, who came on for Boxall in the 65th minute after Andy ran the legs off the Anvils defence, finished the Blues scoring with a deserved goal in the 82nd minute with a feed from Smarty to cap off an extraordinary 7 minutes for the Blues.

Lee Gibbs would deservedly run out with man of the match due to his hat-trick, but inspired performances from Andy Smart, Brett Neal and Richie Hellen and even more so Ryan Morten could have meant either one taking it from him overall.

It was a bit of a shame for the Reds as, although this was the double for Rustington after Crawley Down disappointed at Jubilee Avenue earlier in the season, they have had an excellent season which almost saw them going up themselves after spending two seasons ruing their local councils decision not to grant them lights. Now that they have them, they just miss out.

Saying that; nobody in County 2 could deny Rustington the second place spot overall this season as their hard work and dedication deserves. With Peacehavens collapse against the Blues near neighbours Storrington on Saturday, their best case scenario would be to equal Rustington on points but score 12 more goals than them to take second as they also trail by three points. The other candidate, Lingfield kept up the chase with an away win against Lancing to keep them 2 points adrift.

This means the seasons final game for the Blues will see them mathematically second if they draw with East Grinstead at the earlier kick-off time of 2pm and will await Peacehaven and Lingfields games later that afternoon.

Fulltime 0-5

Goalscorers