Worthing's twin towers have sent the most unpredictable side in Sussex rugby to the county cup final.

Second row high-fliers Mark Skrypec and Steve Dove helped the visitors destroy Grinstead with five tries in the first half hour on Sunday.

Now skipper Mike Imrie hopes his rollercoaster side can produce the peak performance they will need to topple champions Haywards Heath in the final, which will be staged at Lewes on April 16.

Imrie, who supervised from scrum half as his pack's driving lineout rumbled Gs back 20 yards at a time in the first half, admitted: "I'm very proud of that performance.

"The preparation and the commitment were really good and we went out onto the pitch as a unit. We can now deem the season a success, providing we stay second in the league.

"Some of the rugby we played today wasn't the type of game you would associate with Worthing but, when you've got a second row like we have, you can't fail to use it."

Skrypec, a 6ft 7ins giant formerly with London Scottish and Blackheath, is high on the Sussex selectors' list for the County Championships while Dove must also be worth considering, especially if the county require a proven front jumper.

Imrie added: "We'll look forward to testing ourselves against Haywards Heath. They have been the benchmark for Sussex rugby for five years and that's the level we want to reach."

Worthing can already look forward to a Tetley's Bitter Cup appearance, their first outing in the senior national knockout since qualifying as Sussex champions back in 1993.

But they must have expected Grinstead to provide them with much sterner opposition at sunny Saint Hill. Gs went into the match gunning for a second successive final appearance but they didn't get going until the second half, by which time it was too late.

They were not helped by the concession of a soft try after just 46 seconds. Steve Imrie's up and under looked to be too far ahead of his colleagues, but Ricky Lake failed to catch and his opposite number Ben Coulson produced an athletic piece of work to dive for the touchdown with the ball inches from rolling dead.

That was the odd try out for Worthing in the first half in that it was the only one which did not originate from a lineout.

Clean catches from Dove and Skrypec were complimented by awesome driving play which saw both locks crash over and flanker Paul Cox round off a pre-planned move, as well as sending out a scoring pass to wing Neal Weston, all in that devastating first half hour.

Outside-halves Justin Looney and Andy Ashwin swapped penalties but the half-time margin would have been more than 28-3 had Terry Butler not been denied by Lake's try-saving tackle or by Looney's pace in a 50-yard kick-and-chase.

Looney was the linchpin of much of Gs' attacking work but they relied more on brute force than imagination and you could not help feeling their Kiwi star would have been more of a threat in the centre.

Gs' best spell of the match deserved the reward of their 65th-minute try as Ray Hennessy burst onto Looney's short pass at a perfect angle to carve his way to the posts. Looney converted.

But Worthing replied almost immediately with a killer blow as Ashwin picked up his skipper's awkward low pass and sent Butler through a huge gap in the defence. Ashwin converted and added a late penalty to round off his side's perfect day.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.