Maidstone 19 v Wimbledon 29 by Trevor Langley
London League 1 South
Home at The Mote, Saturday 3rd October, 2009, Kick Off –3.00pm
After last week’s much improved performance, the visit of Wimbledon, another side struggling for form and consistency in this league, gave rise to hope and expectancy. For the first half, Maidstone delivered, only to fall away in the last quarter, dashing those hopes once more, with a 19-29 defeat.
Two changes to last week’s side, both in the pack, due to Rob Jeffrey’s unavailability and Ian Lee’s damaged ankle, saw John O’Brien and Lee Thompson taking over, while the resurgent three quarter line saw only the switch of wingers, Damien Houlihan and Neil Graves.
From the off, Maidstone looked to stamp their presence and with two crunching tackles to stop Wimbledon’s first attack, the point was made. With building momentum, Maidstone got on the scoreboard after ten minutes with a Horne penalty and this was repeated two minutes later with a second. A third after twenty minutes built a comfortable 9-0 lead but in between, the failure to take two good try scoring opportunities by failing to use numerical overlaps, highlighted Maidstone’s weakness.
Wimbledon began to show more determination and, after breaking the length of the field, established a good position in the Maidstone 22. A back row move from the resulting scrum was comfortably held, but they then moved the ball left for winger Willoughby to score out wide.
From the kick off, Wimbledon moved the ball swiftly thorough hands to outflank Maidstone on the right and, despite a strong covering tackle, the ball was flipped back inside for scrum half Pyes to score near the posts, giving an easy conversion for Simmonds and a 12-9 lead.
Despite the loss of prop Debnem to concussion, Maidstone hit back just before half time when a break through the centre by Tommy King was taken on Matthews and replacement prop Sam Bailey before setting up Jack Lamb for a score under the posts. With Horne adding the conversion, for a 16-12 lead, Maidstone looked well set to get something from the game.
But the restart saw Maidstone looking lethargic and Wimbledon eager to claw back the deficit and, within three minutes this came to pass. From a Maidstone line out, won comfortably by Matthews, the ball was stolen in the resulting maul and quickly shipped to fly half Norton to score under the posts. Inexplicably, the conversion was missed but this score put the visitors back into a one point lead.
Wimbledon missed an opportunity to go further ahead with a forward pass, with a clear run to the line ahead, but on 25 minutes, a ball won against the head by Wimbledon in the Maidstone 22, saw scrum-half Pyes add his second try by the posts and this time Simmonds did not miss, establishing a 24-16 lead for the visitors.
Maidstone’s scrum was looking under severe pressure at this time and they were pushed off the ball on a number of occasions, putting them under extra pressure. But they refused to lie down and a penalty by Horne with five minutes remaining rekindled hope.
A typical Tommy King break, beating a number of Wimbledon tackles in a mazy run, should have led to a Maidstone try but, by delaying his pass, the chance disappeared. Instead, it was the visitors that had the last say when full back Charles skipped past a number of flailing Maidstone tackles to run half the length of the field to score in the corner.
By failing to nail a number of try scoring chances, particularly in the first half, Maidstone threw away an early opportunity to wrap up this game. While there were further improvements this week, particularly in the line out, the team must look to improve their all round game further if this run of defeats is to be stopped.
Team
John O’Brien; Josh Pankhurst; Luke Debnam (Sam Bailey 35 mins): Steve Matthews; Andy Bacon: Lee Thomson (Charlie Simpson 60 mins); Jack Lamb; Ben Court: Gavin Milne; Tommy King: Neil Graves; Peter Horne; Lewis Fawcett; Damien Houlihan: Gareth Hill
