Rye romp to 84-5 victory

Scrummage action from Rye's victory over Eastbourne II. Pictures by Simon Newstead

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Rye Rugby Club was in rampant form as it pulled off one of its biggest victories in years.

The New Roaders scored 12 tries in all as they hammered Eastbourne II 84-5 in Sussex Division Two on Saturday.

Man of the match Rory Creavin ran in four tries, the returning Matt Cooke scored a hat-trick, Gregg Phillips and Simon Wheeler got two each, and John Smith crossed for the other. Chris Edwards added six conversions.

Rye coach Jeremy Nobbs said: “Our scrum was strong, the lineout functioned very well, our defence was strong and our offloading got better as the game went on.

Rye go over for one of their eight second half tries.

“The only things that went wrong was a lack of discipline at the back end of the first half and some of our passing wasn’t as precise as we would’ve liked.

“But all in all it was very satisfying - a good team effort and lots of smiles in the clubhouse afterwards. We played some pretty attractive rugby with good offloading and good support.”

The first four tries came during the first half. Rye started off quite briskly and scored two or three tries, but then started to alienate the referee and got into a bit of an arm wrestle with the opposition, giving away silly penalties and even having a player sent to the sin-bin.