15 October 2005
Medway continued their 100% winning start to the season by brushing past a weak Canterbury side.
Canterbury started well enough, keeping possession for the first few minutes and using their backs, but without really threatening. Then Stewart Stockford wrapped up the opposition outside centre and the ball popped out to winger Jamie Chapman who ran around the Canterbury defence to score.
Chapman added another three minutes later. From a lineout the ball was passed fast and long to the other side of the pitch for the winger to score from 10 metres out.
Gavin Hyder scored next in typical fashion, picking the ball out of a ruck and diving in, before Chapman completed a 10-minute hat-trick with a blind-side run from a scrum.
Medway were now rampant. Richard Verrall caught Canterbury's re-start and ran the ball straight back under the posts, and two minutes later Tom Barnes rolled off a maul to score from close range.
With only 20 minutes gone and the score at 0 - 34 a cricket score seemed
likely, but the referee then told the Medway players that he would stop
the game if they scored more than 50 points. Medway coach Tony Ellis wanted
to use the rest of the match to practice some training field plays, but
the killer instincts of the backs got the better of them. Winning the ball
from a ruck, the ball passed through five pairs of
hands to right winger James Collier who ran in from the half way line,
despite shouts to stop and pass the ball back up the line. Half time came
soon after, and with Verrall having converted three of the tries, the teams
turned around with the score at 0 - 41.
Bemused spectators watched as the second half took on a surreal quality. Shortly after the re-start, full back Tom Bourne picked up a clearance kick on half-way and weaved through half the Canterbury team to score a fine try, only to be scolded and vilified by his teammates.
For a short time Medway were camped in the Canterbury half yet trying desparately not to score. Then scrum-half Ryan Ellis took a short pass from Stockford and ran round under the posts. At 0 - 51 it seemed that only the referee could stop them, and true to his word he blew full time after only six minutes of the second half.
