Whitehawk 1                    Burgess Hill Town 3

H Rawlingson 45′           Davis 12′ 17′,  White 72′

Attendance: 55

Match report by George Bryant-Nichols

Burgess Hill’s U18 side travelled to the Terrapura to take on the Young Hawks on Monday the 28^th of February, a rainy night for some promising attacking football. 

The Hillians started strongly, and the pressure told as it only took them 12 first half minutes to break the deadlock after Rawlingson went past Dailly to lay it off for Ollie Davis, who had the relatively simple task of slotting the ball into the empty net. 

Burgess Hill Town doubled their advantage with a brace for Ollie Davis, played through on goal and finishing with aplomb past ‘keeper Elliot Dailly. Celebrating with a knee slide as the Hillians gained control of the match. 

While Burgess Hill continued to dominate the play, the Young Hawks defended resolutely throughout the remainder of the first half, keeping a dangerous-looking Hillians attack at bay. 

In the dying moments of the first half, Whitehawk snatched a goal back through Hugo Rawlingson to give them hope of a second half turnaround of fortunes, perhaps clawing back a lead that they scuppered in their two previous games. Esnouf placed the ball through a few bodies to hit his shot from the edge of the box into the back of the net. 

Whitehawk came out for the second half looking to restore parity, with Luke O’Neil being brought on in the 50th minute for Callum Esnouf, who was struggling with a dead leg.

With vociferous appeals for a penalty as Toby Reeder went down turned down by the referee and in turn the linesman, Whitehawk continued to be frustrated by the scoreline, while chasing an equaliser – with the Young Hawks seeming to make decent progress towards getting back on even terms. Toby Reeder was shown a yellow card for his sins.

Despite the Young Hawks’ best efforts, Louis White struck from close in to effectively rule out any hopes of a comeback, with 72 minutes gone the scoreline stood at Whitehawk 1, Burgess Hill Town 3. 

Del Tobias made two more subs for the team in red, bringing on James Lyon-Monk and Matt Godfrey in an attempt to rescue the match, but unfortunately were unable to disrupt the scoreline further, with the score remaining 3-1 at full time. 

The Young Hawks fall to 10^th in the table, and will be hoping to bounce back against top of the table Worthing, who have not lost a game all season, so it will be a very difficult test for Del Tobias’ side.