10th April 2010
 
Anchorians v Sheppey

Anchorians show a clean pair of heels to pull Sheppey out of their winning streak.

The Sheppey team arrived from ‘The Ditch’ on Saturday to play Anchorians and with the last seven league games being wins announced that having seen the Anchs play last week this would be “no problem” and predicted an easy walkover.  This confidence was borne on the back of one or two semi professional players being bought into the team to bolster a weak side seen at the start of the season where we did the walking to register a 40 points clear win with the score line being 19-59.  Sheppey kicked off with Anchs playing into the sun with ‘Mad’ Mick McLorn who ran the ball back through the centre before chipping the ball on which was chased by winger Ben Davison.  The Sheppey defence was slightly nervous and the speed of our backs obviously took them by surprise and forced an error which was rewarded by a penalty to Anchs just inside the visitors’ 22 yard box.  Paul Evans took the kick to touch and bought the ball to the five metre for a line out which was stolen by Sheppey.  In an effort to clear their lines Sheppey kicked to touch but failed to make too much ground before the ball went into touch.  If their was one thing that the visitors handled well in todays match it was the line out and Anchs were penalised several times giving Sheppey ground and inviting them into our 22 which was held at bay only by strong defensive work by all of the Anchs team but eventually the pressure paid off and a penalty was awarded to the visitors for an infringement in the tackle by and Anchs player.  Sheppey opted to kick to touch and found the line 5 metres out for a line out.  Anchs opted not to contest the line out and instead work the defensive line which proved to be effective repelling the attack but finally they managed to sneak through to score a converted try.  On the restart Anchs came back at the visitors keeping the ball buried deep into their territory.  A penalty was awarded about 25 metres out and despite a valiant attempt by Evans to score 3-points the ball went wide and fell into dead ball territory for a 22 drop out which was well caught by Alistair Parker who fed the ball out to Parbutt and finally Davison who, running at pace was forced into touch by a spirited Sheppey defence.  Again the line out went against Anchs with the Sheppey full back booting the ball down field to be caught by skipper Adam Davison who ran the ball back up field before going to ground.  Craig Whiting lifted the ball from the ruck and, spotting a gap sprinted through to place the ball over the try line for an unconverted try.  A long restart took the ball to winger Ben Davison who despite a strong run up the wing was forced into touch by Sheppey on the Anchs 10 metre line.  Sheppey won the line out and putting pressure back on the Anchs line eventually managed to cross the line to register another converted try to make the score 5-14.  Now well and truly on the back foot Anchs force a knock on by Sheppey and a powerful scrum enabled Hadris to come our with ball in hand passing to Rob Small and then Parbutt.  Parbutt offloaded to Adam Davison in the tackle and he chipped on but a lucky bounce enabled Sheppey to tidy up the loose ball and kick it to touch.  Sheppey again won the line out and another powerful clearance kick up-field which was intercepted by Ben Davison who ran the ball back at Sheppey before popping it to Ryan Dowling who eventually went to ground and was declared unplayable by the Referee and Anchs were awarded a scrum.  The powerful forwards, lead by Parker, Gareth Knight and Pat Richardson forced the scrummage forward and enabled Hadris to come out comfortably before passing to Evans.  Now deep into the visitors’ territory Wayne English took up the attack and managed to make another few yards before excellent work by the visitors forced a turnover and the ball was again booted clear in an effort to reduce the pressure on their try line. Sheppey tried desperately to make ground by English and Parker combined to allow Parker to rip the ball from the Sheppey player and passing to Kenton Parbutt speedy legs and good support from Adam Davison and Tim Banner-Martin enabled Banner-Martin to run the ball in for Anchs second try beneath the posts which was converted by Evans to bring the score to 12-14.  Anchs were now on the forward march and with just minutes to go in the first half play bounced from one half of the pitch to the other before a fine team try was scored by Ben Davison following a driving maul from which the ball was fed rapidly across field to reach Davison who, supported by Dowling rolling out of a tackle placed the ball over the line to make the score 17-14 into half time.

Now with the sun in their favour Anchs were keen to build on the success of the first half and inject some pace into the game.  Our backs took this on board and ran the ball on at every opportunity putting pressure onto the Sheppey line.  However, Sheppey were not going to roll over and gave as good as they got.  The entire Anchs team put up the performance of a lifetime to keep them at bay and several times Sheppey got literally to within inches of scoring and were only held out by trademark defensive work by Anchs.  Parker produced good results ripping the ball from attacking players, Richardson and English also played their part, forcing errors by Sheppey allowing Anchs to use the advantage of distance from penalties and soon Mad Mick took a smooth pass from Banner-Martin to run the ball over the line to score another try for Anchs making the score 22-14.  Anchs made a couple of changes with Paul Evans being replaced by Chris Everett and Ryan Dowling also being replaced.  The changes enabled Anchs to maintain the pressure on the Sheppey line and ensured that they were unable to reply to the Anchs score line.  Despite strong attacks by Sheppey the entire team placed their bodies on the line to end the game with the score line unchanged at 22-14.  This was undoubtedly one of the performances of the year by Anchs.  Vice-captain Alistair Parker said that this was one of the best games he had played all season and he was impressed by the performance of the team.  This was backed up by the Head Coach Alex Browne who stated, “What a fantastic performance by the entire team.” Asked about Man of the Match Alex replied, “How can I pick an individual from that performance, the whole team worked their socks off and played out of their skin.  All of them deserve to be named as Man of the Match.”

Captain Adam Davison stated “What a match, I ache now and I know that I will ache even more tomorrow.  I was really up for this game today and it seems now that everyone else was as well.  This match really marks the end of the season for us in the league and we finish in forth place.  Not too sad and now I have been confirmed as skipper next year I am really up for the next season. I would like to thank everyone on the team today; the win was well deserved and really hard fought for.  Sheppey played hard and hit hard in the tackle, and we knew it.  However, we were the better side and that is down to the whole team playing for Anchorian pride.  Despite the warm weather today we managed to consistently put attacking moves together and get the scores that counted.”

Report by Clive Davison