With the 1st XV having a rest day from League rugby, attention turned to the 2nd XV. On a perfect sunny day, the 2nds maintained their unbeaten record with this deserved win over Hellingly in the Sussex Salver Cup. After Lewes raced to a healthy half-time lead, the second half was more even as Hellingly - suffering from several front-row injuries - had to concede to uncontested scrums. But this in fact favoured the home side whose forwards had been under pressure from the start. This enabled them to come back into the game during the second half, but not enough to prevent Lewes from returning home with the honours.

The opening score from the visitors came after only four minutes, the pack winning a scrum near Hellingly's line, ending with right-winger Josh Farr going over in the corner for an unconverted try to put the first points on the board, 0-5. Eight minutes later, this became 0-8 after Farr kicked over a penalty from 22 metres out after Hellingly were penalised for offside. Seven minutes later, the hosts' scrum-half was yellow carded for an off-the-ball offence and Lewes took full advantage with a second penalty kick by Farr to extend the lead to 0 -11.

With the extra man, Lewes now piled on the pressure and scored their second try some five minutes later, outside-half Sam Ticehurst scoring under the posts, Farr adding the extras, to go further ahead at 0-18. On the half-hour, Lewes went over again, Farr adding his second, but unconverted, try to pull away at 0-23, and just before the half-time whistle, another Hellingly player was yellow-carded, meaning that Lewes kicked off the second-half with a man advantage once more.

It was therefore not surprising that they extended their lead only six minutes into the half, Farr kicking over a penalty to make it 0-26. But it was at this point that uncontested scrums came into play, giving the hosts more possession and territory than they had enjoyed in the first half. As a result, they scored their first - and only - converted try of the match on 53 minutes, to put points on the board at 7-26. But in the dying moments, Lewes pulled away to 7-31 after holding off a period of Hellingly pressure, winning the ball before swiftly passing it out to left-winger Lewes Austin for an unconverted try in the corner.

However, due to Hellingly's inability to field a full scrum for the whole match, then - under the Cup rules - they had their own points deducted, meaning that the official result as recorded by the referee - who had a very good game himself - was 0 -31.

Lewes: Cripps, Bowry, Irvine, Jolly, J Evans, Robinson, Quelch, L Evans, Durrant, Ticehurst, Farr, Brown, Perks, Austen, Furlong. (Reps,all used: Bacha, Man, Bishop, Moore).

On Saturday Lewes 1sts make the long trip to Folkestone, while the 2nds are also away against Hove 3s.