6th October 2007 - Cranbrook III vs Maidstone V's

On a day when we saw the world champions successfully defend their title against Australia and New Zealand got sent home from the World Cup by the French, both results were trumped by that of Maidstone's victory at Cranbrook.

Following the dissapointed of having to concede the previous weeks fixture, Maidstone Barbarians first competitive fixture of the season saw them in high spirits and eager to get the season off to a good start.

The game started with Maidstone on the back foot from the start. With a strong pack Cranbrook dominated early in the scrum and the lineouts. After 20 minutes this domination was finally utilised upon and they went over in the corner to score their first try of the game. By this stage we had already made a change in the front row, bringing on the forever young Steve Pooley due to an injury to Olly Coomber. The game continued in the same fashion with Cranbrooks forwards still dominating proceedings. Injury to Steve Oakley brought on Richard Hadfield to the back line and imediately injected some pace to the Centre.

After the initial pressure Maidstone started to move the ball about and some good movement from Paul Murphy (SH) saw him go over for the first of Maidstone's tries. A clever scissors move a few minutes later saw Mike Gillies (IC) run over for the first try.

Maidstone where now on the up and a further try in the corner by Matt Bird saw Maidstone up at the break by 19 points to 7.

Cranbrook started the second half as they started the first. Before Maidstone had got the half time orange out of their teeth a further two tries had gone past them. At this point defending from both teams had gone AWOL and tries were being scored all over the place. At one point Maidstone were down by three tries with only 20 minutes of the clock left. With some spirited drive from Captain Carr the forwards started to get into gear, holding possession at Scum's and lineouts. This extra spirit allowed the backs to get the ball out wide enough to stretch the 14 men of Cranbrook to bring the score level with 2 minutes left on the clock.

From the kickoff the ball landed squarly into the grip of Andy Brown who then proceeded to run the 70 meters through the flailing Cranbrook defence to touch down in the corner. A frantic restart wasnt enough and Maidstone ran down the clock to hold onto a fantastic win.

 

Try Scorers: Paul Murphy (2), Mike Gillies (2), Matt Bird, Richard Hadfield (2), Andy Brown.

Conversions: Paul Murphy (4)