Dover Rugby Club

With New Ash Green cancelling Dover took the opportunity to step up a couple of levels by taking on Kent 2 team HSBC. Just to make it a harder task Dover lost a whole back row on Friday night to call ups and injuries and 5 of the team managed to get lost on the way and did not turn up to 1520. The hosts kindly put the kick off back but Dover still had to take the field without performing their normal warm up routines.
Despite all the problems Dover produced an excellent first half. The home teams hard runners were cut down time and again by some great tackling lead by Matt Burr on his first game for the seconds and the ever reliable centre pairing of Phillips and Blair. For the first time this season the Dover forwards decided to use one of their more potent weapons, the rolling maul. The smaller Dover pack managed to gain large amounts of territory and it was from one of these mauls that Dover opened the scoring with Dan James setting the ball up for Matcham to step inside the cover and go over unopposed with Marsh converting. Dover continued to pressure throughout the first half but could not manage to increase their lead which was to prove costly.
Most of the second half was a battle fought out in the middle of the park but with the lack of preparation and journey starting to take their toll Dover conceded 3 tries in fifteen minutes. Dover could have crumbled but instead keep their heads up and keep fighting to finish the stronger team. If it wasn't for a few dropped passes with the try line begging they may even have snatched an unlikely victory. Overall though this was the ideal game for Dover to test themselves before next weeks tough league clash against Canterbury.