East Grinstead 2s came away with a huge 41–38 win over Horsham 3s in what can only be described as a game of rugby mixed with a heat endurance test. Played on Horsham’s artificial pitch in boiling conditions, it was a proper end-to-end battle — and somehow, Grinstead just about held on.

The 2s came flying out the blocks in the first half, playing some seriously good rugby and taking control early doors. The platform up front was solid, with Idris and Reggie absolutely folding people all game — if you ran their channel, you were getting sat down, simple as that.

Out wide, the backs made it count. Tries came from Louis Duvall, Freddie Mitchell, Ali Moffat, George Jones and Tom Byron — but let’s not pretend who the real star of the show was. Two tries, three conversions, pulling the strings all game — a proper all-round performance at 10. Running the game, breaking the line, and even throwing in a filthy out-the-back offload to put Ali through for a try. It was shaping up to be a hat-trick, Man of the Match, and probably top try scorer for the 2s season locked in…

…but then Louis Duvall stepped in.

In what can only be described as a clear and deliberate act of sabotage, Louis managed to butcher a certain hat-trick opportunity. Whether it was jealousy, poor vision, or a personal vendetta to stop the top try scorer race, we’ll let the public decide — but it did not go unnoticed. The fact he somehow avoided “Dick of the Day” will be investigated internally. To be fair, not everything went perfectly. There was a brief moment of ego taking over with an ambitious drop-kick conversion attempt… which, to put it kindly, ended up somewhere closer to Crawley than the posts. Probably the low point of an otherwise quality performance.

Second half, Grinstead definitely dropped off and let Horsham back into it, making things far more stressful than they needed to be. The heat, the pace of the game, and maybe a bit of complacency saw the hosts claw their way back, setting up a proper nervy finish. Credit to Horsham, they kept coming, but Grinstead just about held their nerve to see it out.

Man of the Match went to Tom Saunders, who put in a shift out of position on the wing. Marking a unit twice his size, he genuinely had him in his back pocket all game — a seriously solid performance.

All in all, a big win on the road, plenty of quality rugby played, and a few moments that will definitely be spoken about in the clubhouse for weeks. All this ensured a 6th place finish, which for a team that was on the edge of a relegation battle a few weeks earlier, was a fabulous result and ensures next season will be a belter.