Maidstone 13 v Old Elthamians 34 by Trevor Langley
London League 1 South
Home at The Mote, Saturday 5th September, 2009, Kick Off –3.00pm
The new season started for Maidstone with a disappointing loss against promoted Old Elthamians, 13-34. While Maidstone looked as if the early season rust was still clinging to the side, Elthamians, in contrast, were sharp in most of their play and took advantage of the numerous errors by the home side.
The first blow for Maidstone came in the warm up, when new captain, Mark Ryan, tweaked a ham string and could take no further part in the afternoon’s proceedings. This meant that young debutant, Lewis Fawcett, had to step into the breach at a few minutes notice and play out of position at full back.
James Dance, another of last years U-18s, started at fly half and looked neat and tidy outside Craig Whitehead, while South African, Peter Horne made his debut in the outside centre role. With Harry Stockford and Damian Houlihan both returning to the club after a year away, on the wings, attacking potential looked enticing but they were given few opportunities to shine.
Elthamians were promoted last season as winners of their league and it quickly became obvious that they possess a number of exciting rugby players in their midst. With a strong mix of southern hemisphere players allied to an ex-Blackheath contingent, they quickly showed that given time and space, they could punish any opposition. And Maidstone served up both ingredients far too often in this opening day encounter.
The first score came at the end of the first quarter, when Elthamians broke from deep in their own half, up the right wing. While Maidstone managed to get back to stop this initial thrust, Elthamians recycled the ball with centre, Prince Moyo, getting the touch down, out wide.
Elthamians increased their lead ten minutes later, when full back, Boske, the star performer for the opposition on the day, ghosted through the Maidstone defence from the half way line to score near the posts, with Parkinson adding the points.
In this first half hour, Maidstone had generated an equal share of possession, but had not looked to have sufficient cohesion in their back line to really threaten the oppositions defence. However, a penalty by Whitehead after 35 minutes got the home side on the board to reduce the deficit. But just before half time, Boske again punished the Maidstone defence, with his balanced running, to stretch the Elthamians lead.
Maidstone started the second half with increased determination and cut the deficit by three points with another Whitehead penalty but immediately thereafter gave away a soft try. A loose chip into the Elthamians 22 was returned with interest and, with winger Wilisoni recovering the bouncing ball, he made good ground before releasing scrum half, Hosken to score in the right hand corner, to lengthen the lead to 22-6.
A period when Maidstone applied consistent pressure on the opposition was rewarded when fly half, Dance, got the touch down after good work by Houlihan followed by some neat inter-passing near the Elthamians’ line. With Whitehead getting the conversion, the deficit was reduced to nine points and thoughts of a recovery began to emerge.
Unfortunately, these were short lived as, from the restart, after Maidstone had claimed the ball, Elthamians forced a turnover and broke quickly to set up prop, O’Leary, to score in the corner. The final score of the half came just after the half hour and this contained a large element of tragedy.
From a scrum on the half way line, after Maidstone had thrown in ‘not straight’ at the line out, Elthamians fly half, Parkinson, dummied first his opposite number and then the full back to score near the posts. But in touching down, he was tackled and broke his arm and this resulted in a 20 minute delay while he was carried from the pitch in some distress.
On the restart, Maidstone built a period of consistent pressure on the Elthamians line but they never looked sufficiently cohesive, as a unit, to cause more than minor problems.
Maidstone can improve on this initial showing. First up tackling, closing down opposition runners and throwing the ball into the line out were weaknesses on this occasion but are all correctable and will help generate the platform necessary to pressurise the opposition and get more points on the board.
Team
Rob Jeffrey; Josh Pankhurst; Luke Debnam (John O’Brien 53mins): Steve Matthews; Chris Tresize: Nick Sargent; Jack Lamb; Ben Court (Ian Lee 58 mins): Craig Whitehead; James Dance: Harry Stockford; Neil Graves; Peter Horne; Damian Houlihan: Lewis Fawcett
