30th January 2010
Maidstone IV 0 Anchorians II 34
The game started well even though the pitch conditions were still hard from last night’s frost. But Anchorians forwards took charge of the game right from the start, the front five were able to create a very stable platform for the rest of the team. Players such as Alan Blythe, John Henderson & Dan Barker had great games and caused Maidstone all sorts of problems in the set pieces. But Anchs didn’t have it all there own way and the Maidstone backs created problems for Anchs in the midfield although they never managed that last pass. The 1st half ended 12 – 0 with 2 try’s coming from both Carl Cooper and Andy Neale and Paul Evans converting 1 of the trys.
Several changes were made at half time and 2 players received their debuts for Anchorians Tom Furse went on to the wing and Toby Pearce went in at hooker. It wasn’t long before Tom found himself in action as the ball went skilfully through the hands of the backs and arrived with Tom who only had half the pitch to score his 1st try on his debut. The Anchorian pack again dominated the 2nd half and gave plenty of good ball, which enabled more scores from Gareth Knight and Ben Davison who collected 2. Anchorians didn’t have it their own way all of the time and at several points found themselves defending their line for long periods of time. Yet the defence was strong and Anchorians were able to keep a clean sheet.
This was a harder game than the score suggests and both sides worked hard throughout that cold afternoon. It would be unfair to award man of the match to only one player in this game and so the man of the match award for this week will be shared between the entire Anchorian pack who thought hard from the off and continued to put pressure on the opposition for the entire 80 minutes.
Reported by Mark Dishman