21/10/06 - MAIDSTONE V 10  ASHFORD IV  36

(Tries: Bishop, Jones)

Thanks to numerous late drop-outs the Barbarians were once again left struggling for players shortly before kick-off and it was only thanks to Dave Jackson and Nicolas agreeing to come down from the 3rd bench into the 5s starting line that they were able to field a full side.

Despite going down to an early try Maidstone were close to levelling the score until a lose pass was intercepted at the Ashford 22 leaving the majority of the Barbarians standing in stunned silence as they watched a single Ashford player run the length of the pitch to score their second.

However, the Barbarians came back fighting and were beginning to take control of the scrum when the Ashford hooker suffered a injury to his knee which, with no front-row replacement, saw the scrums go uncontested.

Unfortunately that wasn't the only injury of the half when, moments before the half-time whistle, Barbarian full-back Paul Hodges suffered what can only be described as a "questionable" tackle that left him with double-vision and despite his protests to continue playing saw Maidstone reduced to 14.


The second half began as a much more even affair with both sides getting a fair share of the ball when, in a moment that was either blind panic or sheer genius, winger Stewart Bishop, having received the ball after some superb passing along the back line, started a run, stopped, started again then backed off once more before sprinting passed his now very confused opposite number from the half-way line to down the ball and finally put the Barbarians on the score board.

A few more barrelling runs from fill-in centre Darren Yates and yet more textbook passing along the line soon saw winger Steve Jones go over for his first ever and Maidstone's second.

Unfortunately a damaged wrist suffered by centre Nicolas saw Maidstone reduced to 13 for the remainder of the match and despite some hard-fought defence, excluding captain Carr's nearly disastrous clearance kick from his own try-line that saw the ball actually travel backwards (an early contender for this years "Tim Doyle Award"?) the Stones were unable to contain their opposition and eventually finished 36-10 down.