Match Report
Maidstone 3
Aylesford 26 (Ouch!!)
London League 1 South By Trevor Langley
Home at The Mote, Saturday 13th February, 2010, Kick Off –2.30pm
Local derbies are exactly what they say and require no other reason to inspire passion, leaving the winner with a source of satisfaction no matter how well, or badly, their season has progressed. In this case, the season for both teams has been awful, so the incentive of a win held a double bonus.
Aylesford had a further incentive, having never beaten Maidstone in a league fixture, and this, along with a strategically timed yellow card for Jack Lamb, proved the deciding factor, as the visitors ran off with the spoils, 26-3.
After last week’s strong, attacking performance against Sidcup, with four tries coming from the backs, much was expected from the same Maidstone unit but, once again, they flattered to deceive. Stringing passes together seemed an awfully complicated process for them and exceptionally difficult to perform whilst running. Aylesford made a better fist of things but contrived to drop the ball at vital moments.
As a consequence, the first half resulted in stalemate. The first twenty minutes saw Aylesford territorially dominant but Maidstone making the required first-up tackles. In the second quarter, Maidstone came more into the game, kicking well to establish themselves in the Aylesford half but failing to finish off a number of promising moves.
Two penalty chances to Aylesford, on 15 and 20 minutes, were spurned by fly half, Harvey, the second from a comfortable 30 metres, to let Maidstone off the hook in this period and the teams turned round, at half time, scoreless.
Aylesford started the second half with considerable purpose but it was Maidstone who scored first. A penalty to Aylesford just past the half way line was reversed and then progressed ten metres for some silly backchat, bringing it within Mike Molloy’s range and he duly delivered a slender lead for the home side.
But Aylesford were not to be denied, and with ten minutes gone, from a scrum deep in Maidstone’s 22, the ball was fed to inside centre, Nauer, to score by the posts. With Harvey adding the conversion, the visitors had their noses in front with a mirror image of the score in the same game earlier in the season.
Maidstone dragged themselves back into the game and worked themselves into promising positions but a yellow card to flanker Jack Lamb, as ever, in the thick of the action, on 20 minutes, permanently swayed the balance of the match. While there was some dispute as to his transgression, the punch delivered to the jaw of the Maidstone captain in the same incident, went unpunished and left Aylesford with a numerical advantage, of which they took full advantage.
With Josh Pankhurst leaving the field after a knock to the head, Maidstone were in some disarray in the pack, and a push over try with No 8, Ledua, getting the touch down, immediately followed. Two further tries to Ledua from open play, as Aylesford found their feet and Maidstone tired, wrapped up a satisfying first win for the visitors and left Maidstone nursing bruised pride to set alongside their aching limbs.
In summary, this was a poor performance from Maidstone. Too often, they were turned over in the tackle and when they did secure good ball, too much was kicked away. Without a level of passion to match that delivered by the visitors, Maidstone posed Aylesford too few problems and duly lost out to a side with more hunger for the win.
Team
John O’Brien; Sam Bailey; Luke Debnam: Steve Matthews; Andy Bacon: Lee Thomson (Charlie Simpson 50 mins); Jack Lamb; Josh Pankhurst (Rob Jeffrey 62 mins): Mike Molloy; Tim Wetjen: Neil Graves; Craig Webb (Lewis Fawcett 75 mins); Mark Ryan; Gareth Hill: Duncan McClintock
