25 March 2007
Like Medway, Beckenham were disappointed to go out of the Kent Festival Cup competition at the semi-final stage the previous week, and arrived at Priestfields determined to do well in this unofficial third place play-off. Medway were hoping to keep up their good record against Beckenham over the last two years, which has seen two big wins and no points against, despite mustering only 16 players because of injury and illness.
Jamie sprints in for
the first of his three
The first phase of the match saw some jockeying between the two packs in the middle of the field, with Beckenham's big forwards perhaps looking the more effective early on and eventually gaining some territorial advantage. But after five minutes when they tried to spread it wide Jamie Chapman intercepted, and after a brief juggle with the ball, raced 60 metres to finish unopposed between the sticks. Stewart Stockford converted and Medway had a 7 - 0 lead.
Beckenham continued to press through their forwards with occasional forays in the backs, but the home defence was looking strong. Medway's forwards gradually began to dominate at the ruck without taking any decisive advantage. When the next breakthrough came it was down to a Beckenham fumble. Grabbing the loose ball and working it rapidly wide to Chapman, a jinking run again put the winger over the line and Stockford converted for Medway to reach half-time 14 points up.
Tom breaks the line
It took only a minute of the second half for Chapman to complete his hat-trick. Number 8 Gavin Hyder decisively broke the defensive line and timed his pass wide perfectly to defeat the fullback and give Chapman an easy run in. Stockford's place kicking was looking as good as it's been all season as he added the extras, and then further demonstrated his kicking skills in open play with a 20 metre chip over the Beckenham defence for Richard Verrall to run onto and gather. Verrall is hard to stop, and he forced his way over the line with two tacklers vainly hanging on. Stockford again converted and suddenly it was 28 - 0 and the result no longer in doubt.
Beckenham however had other ideas, coming back strongly through forward pressure and camping for a while in Medway's 22. For several phases of play it looked like they must score as they forced ruck after ruck on the Medway goal line. But Medway rarely panic under this kind of pressure, soaked it up with determined defence, and eventually came away with some strong counter-attacking play. First Tom Barnes broke through the centre, then Simon Brooks took it up with a driving run from the 22 metre line only to be stopped half a metre short. He set up the ruck and scrum-half Ryan Ellis was able to pick the ball from the base and dive over for the fifth try. Stockford narrowly missed the conversion.
Ryan scores the fifth from 3 inches
Beckenham again looked likely to score as they came back strongly once more, but again Medway escaped from their line and moved fluently upfield. George Dyer, having one of his most effective games at prop, won the ball and set up a maul that the pack drove over for Joe Jelfs to touch down. Stockford completed a five from six conversion record to make the final score 40 - 0.
