Gravesend II Vs Mustangs - 8/9/07

Maidstone began their 2007/8 league campaign with a 10 - 3 victory over Gravesend.

The Mustangs started strongly and their large pack showed from the opening scrum that they held the ascendancy up front, and continually sent the opposition scrum backwards at a rate of knots.

There was evidentaly alot of early season rustiness, many handling and judgement errors, but the Mustangs slowly felt their way into the game.
Gravesend gave away far too many penalities for their liking in the opening 20 minutes, resulting in an early yellow card. With this advantage, Maidstone were awarded a scrum on the opposition 5 metre line, and the Mustangs pack pushed their way over for Neil Smitherman to touchdown. The conversion was missed. From then on, Maidstone were the dominant force, but unforced errors let them down, and they were unable to get any continuity.

The half ended when a collapsed scrum led to an injury to the Gravesend loose head prop (who was subsequently taken away by air ambulance). The injury meant that there was just over a half hour delay, and ultimately the game had to be moved to the Gravesend 2nd pitch. The long break did Maidstone no favours, and for most of the 2nd half Maidstone continually invited pressure upon themselves by giving the ball away. They were unable to make use of their big pack and failed to utlise their effective mauling game. It was not until the last phase of play that the Mustangs showed what they were capable of. Sustained pressure was put on the Gravesend forwards, as the Mustangs went through 7 phases of picking and driving from the base of rucks. Eventually the pressure told on the opposition, and debutant Sam Bailey bulldozed his way over the line from 5 metres out to score and secure the game for the Mustangs.

Neil Smitherman carried the ball superbly all afternoon, and he is this weeks man of the match. Other notable performances came from Ian Lee and Nick Coles.