Folkestone
U13s (27) v (7) Dover U13s
Played
Sunday 8th February 2009
Dover's under13s visited the stones this Sunday in what turned out to be perfect playing conditions for rugby. Dover showed that they have indeed started to take the training sessions on to the pitch on match day and showed a great improvement over the last local derby with the stones.
The first half saw a strong defence from Dover all over the park with the ball being held up on two occasions. It took 15 minutes for the stones to eventually break through the Dover lines for their first try.
Shortly afterwards another try to the stones strong center brought the score to 10-0.
Neither being converted. The stones looked certain to score again at the end of the first half but a great last ditched tackle in the corner took the stones player into touch to deny stones another try. The second half caught the Dover lads napping and an opportunistic try was again scored right at the restart. A further quick fire stones try took the score to 0-20.
The forwards had played particularly well for the entire game only small mistakes here and there was the difference between the two teams. From a good strong Dover scrum, scrum half Shields fed the ball to fly half Allen who switched to the blind side at pace and showed great vision to kick over the defence from inside the visitors half. The chase for the try line was on, the ball was just scrambled by the Folkestone defence but the clearance kick was skewed and the ball fell to Walledge who found himself in open ground who looked a dead cert to score. But in a moment of madness took the ball back into the centers! However, the resulting ruck forced a stones mistake and a penalty was awarded to Dover on the five metre line. An excellently worked forwards training ground move resulted in a fabulously taken try under the posts by Joe Cooper with decoy Glew fooling the defence. Allen converted comfortably 20-7.
Folkestone scored one further break away try at the death which was converted to take the score to 27 - 7 in favour of the stones.
Dover should be proud and take some much needed confidence from this performance, particularly the forwards. Debutant Nathan Grant is fitting in well and showed good character in playing on with blistered feet.
Much work is still to be done over the coming weeks on Thursday and Sundays. Well done lads.
The team as a whole showed that they are starting to really get what is required to win matches. Much training is still needed and new players are welcome to training this and every Thursday 18:15 - 20:00 at crabble & Sunday
10-12 at Kearney.
Team: Kallum Allen, Robin Jenkins, Matt Saunders, Josh Glew, Angus Killin, Joe Cooper, Nanthan Grant, Kieron Hopper, Matt Ribbans, Finley McMunn, Derren Russel, Fraser Shields,George Smith,Tyler Walledge, Cory.
(Jordan Annakie, - Injured, Harry Moore - Mascot ).
