Brighton & Hove's steady improvement brought a second win in three games in the South East League premier division at East Grinstead 2s on Saturday, with Lauryn McDavitt scoring the only goal of the match.

Despite fielding an understrength side and in wintry conditions Brighton managed the game expertly, with victory seeing them jump four places in the table.

Bara Kavanova reports: "On a very cold Saturday Ladies 1s travelled to East Grinstead for a late game (4pm) which was going to decide who will be above the other in the league table. There were a few people unavailable due the timing of the game and so we had a couple stepping in. It's only fair to say that Gaby, Georgie and Gayle (who came straight from the 2s game) stepped up with absolutely no problems at all!

As we only had one sub to start with we tried a new tactic of sitting back and letting the opposition come to us to save legs. This worked very well and our midfielders were all over them when they tried to hit or dribble through us and Georgie at the back was consistently stealing the ball off them when they somehow managed to get through.

We were very disciplined and working hard as a unit. After Sophie (GK) had made a couple of great saves and denied EG from short corners, Lauryn took advantage of miscommunication among EG's defenders and absolutely smashed the ball into the side board of the goal to put us in front.

Once we gained the lead we were not going to let it go. In the second half we had all the wind and rain in our faces, but luckily not long in, Emily and Liv, running from their school fixture, arrived and gave us all the strength we needed to keep a clean sheet.

It was a very important win as we moved from 11th to seventh. Come and cheer us on again against Epsom on Saturday (12 at home) as that could keep us out of reach of others.

MoM - Lauryn
DoD - Gaby (not reading email and turning up with new stash but wrong colours). "

BHHC 2s 0
Hailsham 1s 2

Jess Harris reports: "After losing a few of our regular seconds players to the firsts and injuries, we faced the problem of gaps within the team but luckily some of the 3s generously stepped up.

This week Brighton faced Hailsham, who we were aware had a couple of strong players which we knew would dominate the game if they got the ball. With some crisp and smart passing up the pitch Hailsham defended well, which became very frustrating for Brighton. Hailsham played very attacking, which was nerve-racking at times for Brighton. Half time 0-0.

At the start of the second half you could see Hailsham were gunning for goals and the win. But Brighton's defence stood their ground, working tirelessly, marking and clearing the ball from a very packed D.

Unfortunately, a pep talk from the Hailsham coaches at half time meant that they scored from a very well worked short corner routine getting the ball in the top right corner of the goal. This didn't make Brighton give up; it made us even more determined to attack and try for a goal. Brighton continued to attack up the pitch but Hailsham's defence wouldn't let us score. Having multiple shots on goal, working the Hailsham goalkeeper into making some really good saves, we still couldn't score.

Which then made Hailsham attack our D, which resulted in a penalty corner. Brighton's defence fought hard, with Jess in goal making two great saves. But sadly Hailsham got the better of our defenders and scored their second goal. Final whistle went 2-0 to Hailsham.

Hearts broken, Brighton now are even more relentless to win next week when they travel to Epsom.

MoD - joint Amanda,Bills and Diva.
DoD - Jess."

BHHC 4s 2
Southwick 1s 0

Christine Cawte reports: "Determined to secure a win ahead of Meal About Town, the 4s arrived at Baltic Blatch ready for the three points that would take them joint top of the league.

After the changing rooms revelation that Poppy had won The Weakest Link, thus stealing Postie’s game show appearance crown (which actually could just be summed up as waving at head height), we set out to warm up to tunes. There was nothing warm about this game.

Straight from the whistle, we dominated the game and continually attacked their half. Our mids were definitely not the weakest link: Poppy, Becca, Postie, Baker, Al-Webb and Liv stole Southwick’s play whenever a counterattack looked on the cards. Liv, also known as Jesus for her ability to come back from the dead at MAT, hassled their main playmaker in the midfield whilst our forever solid back line of Briggsy, GG-Unit, Lizzy and Rosie thwarted any attempts which came their way.

When called upon, our resident ninja Abbie looked after our goal with more care than her set of keys in Revenge.

Continuous attacking play resulted in numerous chances for Christine, Wan and Cressie with Wanny slotting away two goals in the first half to secure the MoM crown. The score remained 2-0 as we battled the icy wind. DoD went to the unfortunate captain, whose frozen hands forced her to retreat to the changing rooms at half time for a quick cry under the hand dryers.

High off securing joint top of the league, we celebrated at MAT with copious amounts of tequila, the resurrection of Olivia Howes, arriving at Revenge at 2am and enough dancing to put us in fat burning mode."

Other results
BHHC 3s 5 Crawley 1s 0
Worthing 1s 2 BHHC 5s 3
BHHC 6s 5 Honeybees 1s 1
Lewes 4s 4 BHHC 7s 0
BHHC 8s 5 Middleton 3s 0