Crawley have only lost once this season in all competitions back on the first day of the season away to the All Blacks.
The All Blacks had a blip in October losing 3 games but since then they have got better with each passing week. They came into this game with a strong squad, with a very familiar looking pack, but were without fly half Sam David, centre and top points scorer Rhys Clarke, who will need to wait a few more weeks to take his 146 point haul for the season over the 150 mark and in-form full back George Yeates; but did have a powerful bench of "finishers".
The All Blacks took the game to Crawley from the off with the pack making ground with ball in hand. After 5 mins of one way pressure the All Blacks knocked on in the Crawley 22. At the scrum Crawley showed their endeavour passing out to the wing where their speedster showed power, a step and raw pace to burn, to run 70 metres to score under the sticks for the converted try 7-0.
The All Blacks went back to plan A, keep hold of the ball and for the next 20 minutes Crawley did not get a touch. Despite the onslaught the All Blacks could not break down the ferocious Crawley defence lead by their impressive open side flank and No.8. All Black fly half Jordan Sayers had gone close with a penalty during this period however they needed to turn pressure into points.
Following a break in midfield by centre James Brown the forwards carried the ball on. At the ruck scrum half Massimo Hiller drew the defence out before passing back inside the second row Adam Rez who ran on 10 metres and stretched for the line to score. Sayers added the extras to level the scores 7-7.
The All Blacks continued to dominate possession and territory stats. Props Paul "Gloria" Hasib on his 18th appearance of the season and John Phillpot carried a lot during this period. Crawley killed the ball at a ruck after one such carry. Sayers kicked for the corner. At the lineout Hasib lept like a spawning Salmon much to the shock of the 250 people in attendance. The element (of complete) surprise allowed Hasib to drive the ball on before blindside flanker Russ Sailosi picked up and burrowed himself through a number of players to score in the corner. Sayers missed the extras 7-12.
The last 10 minutes of the half got a little scrappy with the All Blacks full back Owain Jenkins winning the tennis match 3 sets to love putting up bomb after bomb in reply to the Crawley 10's low range kicks. With 5 minutes to go at a messy ruck club captain and hooker Ben Dewey was shown a yellow card after clearing out a Crawley player a little to vigrously with a move Connor McGregor would have been proud of.
The All Blacks saw out the last 5 minutes as Crawley came back into the game.
The All Blacks came out strongly again in the second half with winger John Rainima getting through a lot of work coming off his wing in search of some action. Once more Crawley's defence stayed steeley strong. After another drive by the Black pack the ball was spun back to OJ who mimicked his boyhood hero Jonny Wilkinson to drop kick the ball through the up rights to extend the lead to 7-15.
At this point the All Blacks brought on some reinforcements with try scoring sensation prop Lee Collingbourne coming on for John Phillpot, along with Tony Cella sporting lovely blond streaks in his hair at hooker.
The change of personnel took a few minutes to bed in and Crawley took their chance once more attacking from their own half showing great hands where once more their pocket rocket winger scored in the corner. The conversion was narrowly missed 12-15.
In the last 20 minutes the All Black pack started to dominate with Rez, No.8 Dave Wattam and Sailosi making in roads with ball in hand.
After carrying a Crawley player over their own line the All Blacks packed down for the 5 metre scrum. Smelling blood the Black pack drove their opponents back over their own line like the the Spartans drove the Persians over the cliff in the film 300. At the tail or the raging bull was Wattam who dotted down for his eighth try of the campaign and took the unconverted score to 12-20.
Crawley were now looking tired having defended for large parts of the game, more holes were appearing and centre Dave Daly found one such hole and fed to the pack who took the ball on. At the next ruck Collingbourne picked up the ball like a spare doughnut at a Weight Watchers meeting and was propelled over the line by a wave of All Black players to score an unconverted try 12-25.
Crawley threw the kitchen sink at the All Blacks and it was only some stern defence that kept them out for the last 5 minutes.
Burgess Hill now go into the final at East Grinstead on Sat 27th May vs the winner of Hove 2's vs Hastings.

The Ridgeview Wine Estate man of the match went to Adam Rezazadeh who was badger like all afternoon.

https://www.facebook.com/burgesshillrfc/posts/pfbid02qb2dr9sMnZKBrFL7W5oNJmDqJ11AYNm6tjLN7sZgDKZDvwR6DBGzrrLzp7YPHgcGl