Match Report

Old Colfeians 47 v Maidstone 0      

by Trevor Langley

London 2 South

Away at Old Colfeians, Saturday 1 November, 2008, Kick Off –2.30pm

This game was played in atrocious conditions with rain falling throughout under leaden skies. Maidstone’s luck matched the weather as they fell to another heavy defeat, 47-0, to South London rivals, Old Colfeians. The loss of Piers Frances after 12 minutes, after being knocked unconscious making a heroic tackle on the advancing Colfeians No 8, compounded the position for the Stones, ensuring that any developing cohesion in the side was destroyed.

Fellow strugglers, Colfes, narrowly lost to Thanet the previous week, so with an increasingly settled side, Maidstone had high hopes going into this game. But any anticipation of a reversal of fortunes was quickly dispelled as the bigger Colfeians pack soon dominated the tight play and squeezed the life out of the Maidstone eight. With a retreating pack and a revised back line, Tom Searles stepping up to stand-off half from full back to take over from Frances, Stones first half showing was as miserable as the weather. Four tries, two conversions, a penalty and a drop goal resulted to leave the result in no doubt by half time.

Maidstone were already five points down to a simple move down the line to release the speedy left winger, Tilson, when Frances met the oncoming knee that put him out of the game. A drop goal shortly thereafter and two penalties, all by fly half, Poole, opened a 14-0 gap by the half hour and two further converted tries from scrums close to Maidstone’s line, one a push-over, the second by the No 8, completed a thoroughly dominant half for the home side.

With the wind at their backs, Maidstone began the second half with more cohesion and aggression. With Searles showing some intelligent play, linking both with his back row as well as moving the ball wide, Maidstone began to put the home side under pressure.  But it was Colfeians who scored first, after five minutes, when centre, Maritz, was fed the ball from a scrum near the Maidstone line to touch down under the posts, making the conversion a formality.

By playing the game much more in the Colfes half of the field, Maidstone established a kind of equality but handling mistakes in the worsening conditions meant that continuous pressure was hard to establish. Whenever the opposition made a similar mistake, no one in the Maidstone team was swift enough of thought and deed to take advantage.

Conversely, when a pass to full back Laurenson went astray in the Maidstone 22, on the half hour, the Colfes eight, from the ensuing scrum on the five metre line, were ruthlessly effective in gaining another push-over try to take the score to 40-0 with another conversion by Poole stretching the lead further. As heads began to drop, Maidstone were again shown up when the Colfes stand-off half dropped the ball just outside the Maidstone 22, but instead of capitalising on the mistake with a swift kick through, everyone stood off to allow centre Jeal to pick up and evade a host of flailing arms before crossing in the corner to bring the final score to 47-0.

The Maidstone pack was found wanting in this game against a larger and more aggressive opposition eight. Until they can find either more weight or can up their game considerably, it is difficult to see how the team can function more effectively. Equally, Maidstone’s three quarter line has demonstrated none of the sparkle they showed against Diss, two weeks previously, to counter the obvious deficiencies up front and it is hard to see where the inspiration for this is going to come from.

Team

Sam Bailey; Nick East (Fin Davis 60 mins); Steve Coates: Andy Bacon; Steve Matthews: Sam Johnston; Tom Castle; Matt Iles (60 mins): Ed Laurent; Piers Frances (Mike Laurenson 12 mins): Gareth Hill; Martin Arnold; Mark Ryan; Duncan McClintock: Tom Searles