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Maidstone 19 Guildford 14 |
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Maidstone had what must be called one of their best and most satisfying matches of the season on Saturday with an emphatic victory over second placed and one time run away league leaders Guildford. In the earlier fixture Guildford had scored 76 points!
Maidstone took the game to the visitors and eventually dominated the game. The fact there were 2 so called penalty tries against them only emphasised their ability to attack as well as defend, and how!
The match began however with Guildford in the home half for 10 minutes running the ball on every opportunity with their very speedy backs ‘dancing ‘around the pitch, throwing the ball about with gay abandon obviously expecting to continue where they left off in October!!
How wrong they were! Maidstone weathered the early storm and with the first ‘visit ‘ to the Guildford half, centre Neil Graves broke cover to race to the line with super fit prop Kiwi Scott McIlroy at his shoulder. Scotty took the pass on the 22 and sidestepped his way to the posts. Craig Whitehead added the points. Then just on 30 minutes Craig Whitehead found a very good touch from a penalty. The lineout take was a textbook catch by Captain Steve Matthews who set up a long rolling maul for his pack to make the line with hooker Tom Rogers getting the try. By now Maidstone had taken the game away from the visitors who were getting more and more unsettled as this was not their expectation! As so often happens the telling and deciding point of the match was just on half time Neil graves broke cover again and chased up field who in-spite of attempts to haul him down retained control of the ball to race to the posts to get his second try and Maidstone completed the half with 19 unanswered points.
The second half was like a different match! Firstly the rain came, how welcome in more ways than one but this changed the pattern of the match. Guildford after a tough talk at half time came out with all guns blazing! They now realised they needed to take all their chances to get back into the match. However the increasingly wet ball didn’t suit their flyers! Maidstone changed their game plan and put on a defensive show that would have been a credit to any coaching manual! The front five forwards were solid and the back row trio of Court, Davis and the ever improving Anning were every where snuffing out any attacks. This together with the Maidstone back line tackling any Guildford body ensured they line would not be crossed for the match.
And so to the contentious penalty tries awarded to Guildford! Both of which should have been a penalty at worst and the second a defensive scrum!
In the first instance Maidstone were deemed to have played the ball in an off side position very close to their line but the ball was not over the line in the first place.The match official chose to award a penalty try nonethe less. The second one was right at the end of the match with Guildford speedster winger Wilde using first the old fashioned kick and rush from his own line to race and collect the ball with the line in sight. The only person with him was Maidstone’s French Reunion (island) winger Alex Malejec who tracked him to the line where the visitor knocked the ball on over the line! Both players then went for the ball and and the referee deemed it interference! Non Non
Maidstone can now look forward to their next 2 league matches both away on 8th April against Lewis and probable league winners Portsmouth on 22nd April.
On today's showing they will go into both matches with plenty of confidence and hope to end the season on a high!
Team Moore, Malejec, Graves, Nick Sargent, James Ferris, Aukett, Craig Whitehead (Glover), Mcilroy, Rogers, Hollister (Jeffrey), Matthews, Johnson (Cummings), Anning, Davis, Court |