Mustangs Vs Tonbridge Juddians – 15/9/07
Maidstone travelled to TJ’s last Saturday looking for a vastly improved performance on the previous week against Gravesend.
From the start Maidstone played with more direction and control, with the forwards once again providing a solid platform. Mike Laurenson at fly half showed good poise and decision making which ensured the back line worked more effectively. Despite their early dominance, especially in the scrum, the Mustangs failed to produced enough continued passages of play to really press home their advantage. All too often and good break was spoiled by a lack of commitment at the ruck, often resulting in either being turned over or giving away penalties for not releasing the ball. On a couple of occasions the backs created opportunities for themselves, but were let down either by the final pass or from poor handling.
Finally however, Maidstone managed to get put TJ’s under pressure in their own 22. A driving maul was started from 5 metres out which saw Nick Coles crash over for his debut Mustangs score. The conversation attempt from Laurenson just failed.
10 minutes later and the Mustangs again had TJ’s camped on their own line. The Maidstone scrum destroyed the opposition and drove them backward, Josh Pankhurst picked up from Number 8 and drove to the line, was briefly stopped, but with the assistance of the rest of the pack was driven over to touch down for the 2nd try of the day, again unconverted. This took Maidstone into the break 10 – 0 up, however the performance needed to be improved upon.
The second half began with a whimper from the Mustangs, and TJ’s scored not long after the re-start. A poor clearance kick led to Maidstone gifting TJ’s possession and the Mustangs paid dearly as TJ’s scored in the right hand corner, but failed to convert.
The score shocked Maidstone into action and they immediately upped their game. The rucking improved immensely from the first half and Maidstone began to put several phases of play together. However, once again poor handling was the Mustangs Achilles heel and trying scoring opportunities were missed. It took until 15 minutes of the second half for Maidstone to add to their tally. A TJ’s scrum 5 metres from their own line was driven back at a rate of knots by the Mustangs, the ball stolen, and when Pankhurst picked up and headed for the line and from the mass of bodies that had piled up, Nick Coles somehow emerged with ball having touched down. Laurenson converted to make the score 17 – 5.
Maidstone’s 4th try and the score of the day came from 4 of the mustangs forwards doing their best to impersonate a back line. No. 9 Sam Mann took the ball in to the TJ’s half was tackled and a ruck formed, Luke Day stepped in as scrum half passing the ball out to wannabe fly half, Nick East who deftly held up his man and pushed the ball out wide to put arguably the mustangs most exciting (and slightly Phantom-esque) centre partnership seen in recent years of Nick Coles and Darren Yates in to space. Coles cleverly drew his man and passed the ball to his fellow 2nd rower Yates who took it on a great angle to cut through the TJ’s defence.
With a 25 yard sprint ahead of him Yates showed great pace and literally turned the defending Full back inside out (and to be honest didn’t look overly enthralled at the prospect of tackling at 20 stone rampaging Yatesy) before touching down behind the posts. Mark Thurgood stated immediately that although the try was awesome, he had never actually seen someone run so far so slowly – pot, kettle and black Mr Thurgood.
Laurenson converted to make the score 24 – 5 to the Mustangs, and that was eventually how the game finished.
The Maidstone scrum, combining youth and experience again remained dominant putting on another “power house” performance despite 5 changes from last weeks starting line up, 5 of the 8 under 20 and having Jim Walker try his hand at propping again for the final 10 minutes. Sam Bailey, showed great potential in his first start at loose head in senior rugby after turning 18 just 2 weeks ago, putting in a solid performance. In all the pack stole 5 of TJ’s put-ins.
The Mustangs line out continues to go from strength to strength with Maidstone winning 100% of their put ins cleanly. The resulting confidence allowed the team to be more experimental in this area than they have been for sometime and provided the platform to try some new previously unseen moves that proved very effective. 17 year old James Hughes making his senior level debut worked well at the front of the line, securing the Maidstone ball and disrupting the oppositions put in.
There are still things to work on – ball retention and concentration, as on 3 or 4 occasions, the final pass or poor handling denied a scoring opportunity. Had the Mustangs taken their chances, 40 points could have easily been achieved. The backs are starting to find their feet. Aidan Bailey’s return to the midfield added an extra dimension in both attack and defence – so going forward they should keep getting better.
The Man of the Match this week was a tough call. Of the backs, Aidan Bailey stood out, but seeing as all the tries were scored by the pack, a forward is the obvious choice. Darren Yates try was undoubtedly the highlight of the game, however Man of the Match this week goes to Nick Coles for his two tries and all round committed and strong performance.
The “Div of the Day” was going to go to Nick East for the terrible gag “I bought 8 legs of venison the other day for £500, do you think that was too dear (2 deer)?” – and any more jokes like that could result in mutiny – but when a certain Australian member of the first team reacted with “500 pounds? Hell yeah, you’ve been ripped off” – Dane Smith saved Nick’s embarrassment with a last minute interception.
