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Sevenoaks 15 Maidstone 29 |
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Maidstone travelled to 3rd placed Sevenoaks and picked up 2 more invaluable points in the league. The fact the completely outplayed the hosts is further testament to their belief that they are a far better side than the league position they were in pre Christmas.
This match took some time to get going with both sides playing at a snails pace, governed by the Knole paddock mud.In fact unusually a drop goal from 'oaks out half Maclean that got the scoreboard ticket. Then surprisingly Maidstone's burly Kiwi Scott Mcilroy was given the kicking duties to attempt a long range penalty. It just shaved the uprights.
Maidstone went into 3rd gear with a backs move that allowed centre Neil graves to use his strength to break the cover and score a fine try at the posts. Craig Whitehead added the points who extended the lead further with a penalty. White head saw the drop goal opportunity again but only found good oaks cover who in turn ran the length of the field and nearly scored but for stout Maidstone defence.
'Oaks had a good talking to at half time and responded with a Maclean try in the corner.
Now the decisive part of the game saw 2 tries to stretch the visitors lead. First Martin Arnold collected the ball on the 'Oaks 22 and ran almost the length of the field but with wind and hamstring running out perfectly timed his pass for ever-present Ed Davies to take a pass to put Neil Graves in under the posts. Shortly after Davies again stole a ball on the half way line to sprint to the corner for more points. Craig Whitehead got the difficult touchline conversion. 'Oaks struck back with a try at the posts but they found it difficult to emulate the style of play they has when they won at Maidstone earlier in the season.
Maidstone's Tim Porter showed his speed with a break and run up field and was only thwarted by a stunning tackle short of the line. Finally a penalty followed by a trade mark line out catch and drive by the Maidstone pack with 5 more points by the ‘Jon Sergeant/Tom Rogers axis’ this time skipper Jon ‘exerted his authority’ for the touch down.
This was a fine exhibition of controlled rugby by Maidstone, whose pack wore down the hosts by straightforward no nonsense play.
Scorers Tries Graves 2 Davies 1 Jon Sargent 1 Penalty Craig Whitehead Conversions Whitehead 3
Team Wilford, Porter, Graves, Arnold (Moore), Ryan, Aukett, Whitehead, McIlroy, Rogers, Hollister (Jeffrey), Matthews (McIvor), Johnson, Sargent, Davies, Court |