Dover Under 13s (20) v Folkestone Under 13s (27)
Played 27/01/2008
Archers Court school was the venue for this season’s third competitive
fixture with the young Stones.
From their opening kick of the game Folkestone were by far the more
positive side, kicking deep into Shark’s territory, regaining
the ball and following up with good passing phases to crash over out
wide for the first try. The early score knocked Dover’s confidence
back and under further Stone’s pressure they conceded three tries
in quick succession, one of which was converted. Against the run of
play and staring a rout in the face Dover decided to put their rugby
heads back on for the second quarter. The forwards stepped up three
gears to dominate set piece play, winning a number of scrums against
the head and controlling the lineouts. Close to the Stone’s line
Dover won a Folkestone scrum and Tom Johnstone picked up the lose ball
to go over and register Dover’s first try. This was the spark
that the Sharks needed and putting together some good phases from the
Folkestone kick forged their way deep into Stone’s twenty-two
unfortunately knocking on short of the line. A huge effort from the
pack pushed Folkestone off the ball at their own scrum and again Johnstone
picked up to power his way over the line. The half ended with the Sharks
down 22 points to 10.
Within the first ten minutes of the second half and playing catch up,
Dover’s pack were immense winning four Folkestone scrums the
last of which put centre Oliver Latham clear to pull back another try
for the home side. Folkestone were not however sitting on their laurels
and from the restart their backs managed to elude Dover tackles to
score a breakaway try. The Sharks quickly came back at Folkestone pressuring
their line and putting together a number of phases forced the Stones
backwards unfortunately knocking on to give Folkestone a defensive
scrum. The forwards excelled themselves again pushing the Stones off
their ball, which Luke Rigden picked up to score the final try of the
match.
Under 13s : Kurtis Abbitt, Luke Allen, Joe Bisset, Hal Bryan, Jordan
Caldwell, Tom Clark, Jos Crush, Shaun Fields, Sam Gibbs, Issack Goeghegan,
Aidan Harper, Thomas Johnstone, Joe Killick-Baker, Oliver Latham,
James Moynan, Luke Rigden, Thomas Saunders, Jack Smith, Oliver Thomson.
Coach: George Clark
Reported by Chris Bryan
