Maidstone U10's travelled up to Westcombe Park for the first rounds of the Kent Festival. This involved 3 first round games followed by a 4th game which decided if we would travel to the Finals the following week.
The first game was up against a strong Medway team with a well drilled backline which was the difference between the teams. The Maidstone forwards were exceptional in this game, John, Thomas and Matt all proved their worth with great work at each breakdown, turning over rucks and securing their own on every occassion. The extra work in these areas by Ross and Henry ensured the Medway forwards were kept out of the game. The problem with this was that meant their backs got the ball and ran through a flimsey Maidstone back line at will. Poor positional play and lack lustre tackling allowed for a 5 tries to nothing win for Medway. Comments from the Medway coach was encouraging with him stating our much improved play.
Our second game straight after the Medway one was against Dover. Some changes were made to the starting line up to allow the subs from the first game a start. Maidstone's started well and scored early on via Charlie but the defence was still poor and allowed Dover to score straight from the restart. This continued for the rest of the first half with the score being 3 tries all by the break. The second half saw some more changes to the team which allowed Maidstone to run some more tries in to make the final score 7 tries to 4. Special mention goes to Matt for a tremendous barrelling run for one of his tries as well as our scrum half Ross for a similar run.
The third game up against Vigo would decide which of the 4 play off games we would be in. A victory or draw would make us second in the group and match us up with a showdown with Canterbury or Bromley.
The game started off strongly by Maidstone and were 2-0 up by the end of the first half. With Maidstone looking in a strong position changes were made again to give everyone a game. Unfortunately this allowed Vigo back into the game and a lack of tackling by our more experienced playes brought the game back to 2-2. A try late on by Maidstone looked to have won the game but a swift restart by Vigo and a mazy run through the defence saw the end result being a draw. This was enough for Maidstone to progress as runners up of the group and a tie awaited with Bromley.
The game against Bromley was delayed for no apparent reason and by the time the game started the boys (and coaches) were looking quite tired.
Maidstone defended well for the first time with some crunching tackles by Charlie and Henry causing some issue for the Bromley team. However Bromley's forwards were up to the challenge of the tiring Maidstone pack and managed to dominate alot of the breakdown. The game ended with a Bromley win which meant Maidstone were out of the competition.
It was a shame to have gone out of the festival but the boys played their best rugby EVER. It took until the 4th game for the backs to sort their positioning, but it looked good in the end. The forwards were great all day with some good scrummaging, line out work and of course the rucking. So well done guys keep up the good work.
