Faversham (26) V (14) Dover 2nd XV
Played 25th November 2006
Dover second team went to Faversham on Saturday in the first leg of the East Kent Cup, looking to avenge the defeat earlier in the season, but it wasn’t to be. Dover started brightly and the weight difference of the packs did not seem to faze Dover.
Faversham looked too off load in the tackle to stretch Dover’s defence, but good tackling from Jacobs and Liddon prevented Faversham from doing this. Dover’s pack rucked well and managed to turn over quite a lot of ball, mainly through Chambers who caused the home side problems all game in the contact areas, which was then fed well to the backs by Denning. The back line of Marsh, Price and Dean looked to strike whenever possible at pace but good defence from Sham’s back row prevented them from scoring. Finally, after 20 minutes the deadlock was broken by a piece of individual brilliance from Denning. The scrum half took the ball from the back of a well formed maul close to the touch line and went blind. Showing great pace, strength and fancy footwork Denning eluded 4 Faversham players to score a great try. Marsh converted a very difficult conversion from out wide to give Dover the maximum points.
Dover then fielded the kick off and ran hard at the Faversham pack through Wilkins and Cattermole. Quick ruck ball from Cairns and new boy Matt meant the winger Rix was given a yard to work in. Making good yards Rix was caught but the ever present Kimble and also Mo from fullback rucked well to secure the ball. Denning once again saw the opportunity to go blind and as before executed his run with predator like execution. Evading 3 Faversham players Denning was in again in the same place as before leaving Marsh with another difficult kick, which he struck over with ease.
Dover held on with good defence from Morton and Chambers out wide till half time.
Positive words from Captain Price again and Dover confidently took to the field for what was to be a very different second half.
Faversham now going down hill started very brightly. They ran hard at the 10-12 channel and with good support managed to break the line on several occasions, with only good defence from Matt, Marsh and Price stopping them from scoring at will.
Eventually the pressure took its toll and Faversham’s blind side ran onto the ball at pace and broke powerfully through the line to score a well deserved try.
After this the home side began to run riot through both forwards and backs. Faversham managed to score two more converted tries in quick succession due to missed tackled from Dover in all areas of the field, much to the dismay of Liddon and Price who rallied the players round and gave them a few words of encouragement before they took to the field again. With Faversham running wild it was now down to damage limitation. The forwards began brightly mauling well as they had done all game from the sturdy base Wilkins and Cattermole had set. This gave Dover a lot of possession and also made good yards. The backs also upped their game and good tactical kicking from Marsh released some pressure. This was short lived however as Faversham struck once more for the last time to end the game with a well worked try from the backs. Unconverted left the final score 26-14 to the home team who travel to Crabble in 2 weeks for the return fixture.
Dover seconds: Wilkins, Cairns, Cattermole, Liddon, Jacobs, Matt, Chambers, Kimble, Denning, Marsh, Price, Dean, Morton, Rix and Kamara.
