Gannets edged out by Medway

As The Gannets arrived at the clubhouse pre match they were greeted with the sight of third team players wandering around,pint in one hand,phone to the ear in the other.Apparently Medway 4's had withdrawn with hours til kickoff due to a waterlogged pitch (chinny reckon).So with this mind your favourite social rugby team knew what to expect from the oppo...

Captain Ben,however chose not to pick from the wealth of let's be honest,better players that were at his disposal and instead stuck with his brave Gannets.Danny O and Wakey kindly offered their services as replacements.

The Gannets made their legendary slow start as the slippery Medway 9&10 orchestrated proceedings right from the off.Twice changing the direction of play to the blindside to catch the home side napping.An excellent one on one tackle from Vid 'let's go baby' Petrauskas stopping the first attack,the second ending in a Medway try.The kicker elected to drop kick the resulting conversion which he duly missed for 0-5.

The Gees forwards weren't having it their own way in the scrums at first,being pushed back several times,but soon the tide briefly,began to turn.A series of pick and go's saw them make good ground up field before Mike Percival burst through towards the try line.The Medway full back bizarrely decided to tackle high and was bounced in comical fashion.Martin Riley was on hand to take the ball and crash over the line for the score with Ben adding the extras.

More good work from the Gees including an excellent burst from Steve Wootton which was only just stopped short of the corner flag,causing a Medway player to remark 'look at that silver fox go'! Excellent kicking from the visitors backs however was keeping the Gannets pinned back in their own half and two tries followed in quick succession.For a 7-15 half time score.

Medways lack of an accurate kicker meant that the Gees weren't out of this game and took it to the visitors right from the restart.After great ball retention from the forwards the ball worked its way along to the silver fox once again who this time went over in the corner for the score..or so he thought.Despite his protestations that he was laying on the ball he was adjudged to have been held up and a scrum 5 was awarded to Medway.Ben then stepped in with a quiet word in the refs shell-like,gently reminding him that it was in fact a Gees scrum.A big shove from the pack caused enough panic in the visitors defence to allow Ben to slip through for a try which he converted himself.

The kickoff was then called back for a scrum centrefield with a Medway player adjudged to have been in front of the kickoff.Another big shove saw the home pack drive..and drive..and drive all the way down to the Medway line where somehow Ben appeared,full stretch with the ball over the line.Unfortunately the ball was pushed wide on the conversion,Ben presumably distracted by the sight of John Sargent having a cat fight with a Medway player.

Indiscipline began to creep into the Gees play as they defended their narrow lead with several offsides and handling errors being called against them.A series of attacks on the home try line were repelled before another penalty was given on the 5.This time Medway spun the ball wide where a 3 man overlap had the simple task of dotting down in the corner.

So with 10 minutes left the Gannets knew what they had to do and this task wasn't made any easier with the loss of Ben to cramp.A superb break downfield by Danny O was only thwarted by a dropped ball before a period of disciplined play from the Gees forwards brought them down to the Medway line where the ball was stolen,kicked into touch and that was that.

You'd have to say that had the Gannets kept the penalty count lower then they could have got the win such was the closeness of this game,but take nothing away from Medway who played hard and in the right spirit in what was generally a good tempered encounter.
Every Gannet can be proud of their performance today and picking a stand out performer is no easy task,especially with Bens 14 point haul,but Vid saved two certain tries with his open field tackling,his coverage of the deep ball was spot on and his kicking relieved the pressure on several occasions.

And to reply to the Meds players that asked of Vid 'where the f*cks he from'? He's from Gravesend,my friend.

Until next time...