28th November 2009
Anchorians v Sittingbourne
Photos courtesy of Chris Ferguson can be found here
Following last weeks rest the A’s
should have been fit and ready for the tight game against Sittingbourne. With the visitors walking PA system belching their
screeching battlecry ‘caon Booorrrnn’
the from the touchline A’s went into battle.
The first 20-minutes were spent almost entirely in the visitors half and
when Skipper Adam Davison scored the first points with a cheeky chip and chase from
a scrummage 10 metres out to dive on the ball in the corner for an unconverted
try we thought our luck was in. The
visitors appeared to be struggling to get to grips with the run of play and registered
a high penalty count which unfortunately could not be converted into points by
the A’s. Play continued mostly in the
Sittingbourne half but misplaced kicks allowed the visitors to run with ball in
hand into the A’s half. Once they were there
they set up camp and forced errors by the A’s with a couple of penalties being
awarded against the home team which Bourne opted to convert to scrums which were
turning the A’s over continually. It was
only strong defence and excellent team work that kept them at bay but eventually
the continued pressure paid off and the visitors registered their first try
just before half time which was unconverted leaving the score level at 5-5.
Sittingbourne started the second
half with the wind behind them kicking toward Craig Webb who, under pressure
knocked the ball on resulting in another powerful scum by the visitors. Now well aware that they could walk over our
scrums the visitors worked tirelessly to force errors and penalties by
A’s. Whilst Scrum Half Rob Small and No
8 George Webb tried desperately to prevent the visitors from spoiling our
scrums many were lost either by just simply being run through or turned
resulting in turnover and inevitably, points with one of their backrow forwards
picking up the ball and running it over the line to score their second
unconverted try. A’s tried to ring some
changes with Dave Partridge coming on for injured Andy Pritchard and Brett
Little for Richie Collins. However
whilst the changes made some difference a penalty just in front of the posts
put the visitors another 3-points in the lead.
Now well and truly on the back foot A’s were beginning to wane but they
kept their heads up and came back at the visitors with the forwards coming on
to support an excellent backs move by wingers Ben and Adam Davison with veteran
Pat Richardson covering the last 10 metres to score a try beneath the posts
which was successfully converted by Richie Collins. Now just one point behind A’s were up to show
Sittingbourne true Anchorian grit but with the light rapidly failing the
visitors registered another two tries, one of which was converted to end the
match with a score line of 12-27.
Anchorians Man of Match was Skipper
Adam Davison for leading by example and showing excellent attitude on the
pitch.
Comments heard from the touchline
pundits included: -
‘too much ball
kicked away, especially in the first half.’
‘good game to
watch but far too many missed tackles.’
‘not enough
made of the opportunities in their twenty two yard box.’
Skipper Adam Davison said ‘’No-one
likes to lose but despite that I am impressed with the strength with which we
played. Anyone who watched the match
will know that the score line doesn’t reflect the effort that each and everyone
of our players put in. They all put the
heads down and piled in when it counted.
We made them pay in blood and sweat for each and every point. That said if, when you do get into their 22 you
don’t come away with points then there is no way you are going to win. We still have two training sessions to look
at the issues that went wrong and we can then put the lessons learnt in against
Ashford next week.”
The next league game is on
Saturday 05 December at Ashford.
Report by Clive
Davison