Maidstone vs Beckenham RFC

Kent Cup – Sunday 10 December at The Mote: by Trevor Langley

On a cold, dank afternoon with a heavy pitch after all the recent rain, the prospects of a fast open game looked remote in the extreme. To ensure the game could be played, it was switched from the first to the lower, second team pitch and the players found the conditions challenging from the off.

Maidstone showed three changes from the previous Saturday, with Houlihan coming in for the injured Ryan on the wing, Taylor replacing Nick Sargent at open side flanker and Jeffrey starting in the front row for the departed Kiwi prop, McIlroy.

Having beaten Beckenham comfortably earlier in the season, the challenge for the home side was ensuring they were sufficiently motivated from the first whistle to withstand the early offensive that visiting teams are expected to mount. The early signs were positive with Beckenham making an early mistake from the drop out and Maidstone pressing forward in numbers.

But this early surge was short lived and Beckenham quickly found their feet, putting pressure on the Maidstone pack and camping in the Maidstone half for long periods.

After twenty minutes, an injury to scrum half, Dave Heads, resulted in him being substituted, Wilford coming on to the full back position with Arnold going into the centre, Mitchell moving up to stand off and Whitehead going to scrum half. This change had minimum impact and slowly but surely, Maidstone began to exert themselves, initially through long kicks to gain field position.

Almost on half time, a chip through by Mitchell found a good position in the Beckenham 22 and, with the ball then moving left, Mitchell was again in the line to give a lobbed pass to Houlihan to put the winger over in the corner. Although the conversion from out wide was missed, it gave the home side a 5-0 half time lead that their territorial position had barely reflected.

The wind strength picked up in the half-time period to make conditions even trickier for the second forty minutes but Maidstone were quickly on the scoreboard again when Houlihan chipped through down the left for Mitchell to pick up and coast through the stretched defence to score under the posts. Whitehead added the points to stretch Maidstone’s lead to 12-0.

Maidstone then began to exert themselves through the forwards with Alex Smith and Nick Taylor prominent in open driving play; but the ability to convert this dominance into points proved elusive and a number of good positions were squandered. After an extended period of Maidstone pressure, a kick deep into the Maidstone half by the Beckenham fly half was taken to the try line. The ball was adjudged held up but from the resulting five-metre scrum, the Beckenham No 8, Currie, got the touch down half way out. The conversion was missed giving a 12-5 score line with a quarter of the match remaining.

Maidstone continued to look the better side but good field position continued to be squandered, allowing Beckenham to maintain a hope of challenging the home side’s lead. Conversely, when Beckenham had the ball, Maidstone’s defence was solid and more than one move from the opposition was pushed backwards by solid tackling and quick movement to 50/50 balls.

Beckenham were pinned in their own 22 for the last few minutes and eventually they conceded a penalty that Whitehead converted to secure a solid 15-5 win for the home side.

Rob Jeffrey (Martin Farbrace 60 minutes); Tom Rogers; Simon Hollister: Steve Matthews; Andy Bacon: Alex Smith; Nick Taylor; Ben Court: Dave Heads (John Wilford 19 minutes); Craig Whitehead: Damien Houlihan; Scott Mitchell; Jamie Smith; Harry Stockford: Martin Arnold (Capt)