20 November 2005
Medway under-14s maintained their winning start to the season with a convincing
victory against a disciplined and well-drilled Sevenoaks side. The Medway
forwards drove across the gain line time and again, and the backs produced
some powerful and direct running rugby that had Sevenoaks on the defensive
for most of the first
half.
It took six minutes for Medway to break through. An Oaks scrum on their 5-metre line was passed back into their in-goal, but Joe Jelfs was too quick for their kicker, stole the ball from him and dropped to the ground to score.
Five minutes later, Richard Verrall offloaded out of a tackle, and quick hands from Stewart Stockford put Jamie Chapman into the corner. Medway scored twice more in quick succession. Verrall broke the defensive line on half-way and powered down the field, swerving past the full back and scoring under the posts, and converted his own try. Then Stockford came through on a crash ball, was half stopped, but rolled and dived over. Stockford then converted his own try.
Sevenoaks came back into it in the later part of the half but some fine tackling in the centre, and by James Collier and James Davies on the wings, kept Oaks out and the sides turned round with the score 24 - 0. Stockford successfully repeated the crash ball tactic three minutes into the second half, and Gavin Hyder added another after a typical juggernaut rush through the centre by Verrall.
With the score at 34 - 0 Medway might have expected to run away with it completely, but Sevenoaks fought back fiercely and for the next 15 minutes made Medway's defence work harder than they have had to all season. As the pressure built, Oaks managed to get over the line but failed to ground the ball. Then a series of attacks on the left wing pulled in the majority of the Medway defence, and Sevenoaks moved the ball quickly through four pairs of hands for the right winger to dive past a last-ditch tackle in the opposite corner.
The revival was quickly nipped in the bud by Jamie Chapman, who intercepted a pass on half-way and ran in under the posts for a try that Verrall converted to make the final score 41 - 5.
