Gannets come 2nd

With maidstone offer to rearrange soundly rejected, a new fixture was sought and after a bit of negotiating from the touch line stricken captain Ben Baker, it was announced that a visit to Charlton Park was on the cards to play their 3rd team. This was the 2nd time the gannets had made the trip down this season, with a solid 59-12 victory on the last occasion hopes were high that this could be the week to bring the loosing streak to an end. Unfortunately the vastly improved Charlton park team had other thoughts.

Not helped by the pre christmas shopping trips, post christmas party hangovers and the mounting injury list, the gannets started with a bare 15. New guys Connor and Ash were welcomed into the gannets fold.

An alarmingly regular slow start by the gannets gave Charlton the first points of the day with poor defence allowing a man to slip through to score (its a bit of a mystery which conversions were scored - so I'm just going to count in tries) 1 - 0.

The restart was a high kick into the wind giving the gannets plenty of time to get under the ball, Charlton park forwards proficiently recycled the ball using 3-4 strong carriers to make ground and along with the combination of their fast backs the gannets were going to be hard pressed to keep them at bay. It was soon time for the first scrum of the day, an area where the gannets have more or less destroyed every team played this year, unfortunately this would not be the case today. The Charlton scrum managed to drive back the gannets on several occasions until a particularly brutal push turned the gannets pack over, this seemed to cause some discomfort to Sean, who upon inspection by the team doc (Peter Stone) announced that there was a good chance his shoulder had been dislocated, and was greeted by the reply of 'can I play on'. Sean was sent to the side lines with sensibility winning on this occasion. This left the gannets with a man less in the pack and a an bigger job to do in the scrums. Charlton Park ran in a couple of tries whilst this was going on... 3 - 0.

Again the restart was kicked into the opposition half, and the gannets (a man down) were struggling to stop the athletic Charlton Parc side running through the gap that had been left. Whether it be off the side of a ruck or round the outside of the back Charlton continued to score 5 - 0.

The best attacking play of the 1st half had Jetski running the full length of the pitch to be tackled on the 5 meter line, as is so often the case when he makes a break the rest of the team where too far away to help and the ball was turned over and promptly kicked back into the gannets half. Following an intense section of play near the gannets try line Garrick (I Like to stop people with my head) Cruise - (or my face) Smith took another blow and with Lee shouting 'he had an MRI scan this morning' was the second player to be MIA for the day. In steps... the freshly loaned scrum monster Trevor who certainly steadied the ship in the tight five and gave the gannet backs some good ball to run with, this certainly made some headway into levelling the playing field, along with Percy managing to disable one of the opposition players - in a last ditch effort to stop a score (which sadly failed) just before half time 6 - 0.

Clearly buoyed by the half time team chat the gannets proceeded to play the first 20 minutes as well as they have played all season. Strong defence, good scrummaging and devastating moves from the backs. This led to a great try from Will Garland and another shortly afterwards from Connor. Dan Grant 'slotted a beast of a conversion' for one of the tries. 6 - 2

I would like to report more on this awesome part of the match, but its a bit of a blur, and as quick as it came the spell ended, energy levels dropped off and Charlton Park scored 4 more ties. 10 - 2.

Jetski made an amazing try saving tackle on a player easily twice his size.

An honourable mention goes to Lee Barnes who had reported he was unfit to play due to a smashing hangover from the previous nights Christmas party, but upon news that would leave the team short decided to come anyway. A new year will bring new opportunities for the team, returns from injury will bring some competition for positions, so don't get too fat over Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year To All of You Lovely People and Your Families.

The housewives favourites will return!