Dominant Gannets lack cutting edge

All in all I guess you could say that it was a classic Gannets performance.Mostly asleep and pretty much gifting the visitors three first half tries through poor tackling and sloppy play,they then proceeded to camp out in the Leigh half for 35 of the 40 second half minutes.All to no avail however as the lively Layabouts kept the Gees at bay time and again.

The warning signs were there early as the Gannets won a lineout against the head and then immediately gifted the ball back.Three phases later Leigh crossed the line only to be held up.The Gees dominance in the scrum was in evidence early,winning the Leigh ball but failure to kick for touch cost them dear as the visitors smothered the kicker,won the penalty and spun the ball out wide to comfortably touch down in the corner.A tricky conversion attempt was effortlessly dispatched for 0-7.

The Gannets briefly awoke from the resulting kickoff with runs from Mike Percival and Dan Grant making inroads before a clever Andy Lane kick put the Leigh fullback under some serious Dan Beazer pressure on his own goal line.Going for the shove over from the resulting scrum 5,Leigh had no option but to infringe around the side to stem the tide.Dan Grant took the ball from the penalty and went over in the corner for a score which would surely signal an upturn in Gees fortunes.....but then Perri attempted a conversion and well,anyway...

Leigh soon added to their tally with the Gees being pinged on their own 5 by the referee.Looking like a cross between a village person and Lt Gruber from 'allo 'allo,he signalled the penalty and again,Leigh made no mistake to score by the posts.5-14.

The one area of almost constant success for the Gannets was in the scrum and yet again,they shoved the visitors off the ball to set off a promsing attack.However,the pass from 10 to 12 was telegraphed and the Leigh player gratefully received the ball and cantered in under the sticks for a try which summed up Gravesends afternoon so far.With two conversions under his belt so far,the conversion was a foregone conclusion,but somehow he channelled his inner Ben Baker and missed from right in front of the sticks.

The Gannets needed to grab the game by the scruff of the neck,calm down and get back to basics.What they needed was a predator and a massive ginger scrum half.They duly arrived when Martin Taylor and Dan Bromley went off injured in quick succession and were replaced by Matt Abbott and Ben Baker.A penalty soon came the Gannets way and this time Perri made no mistake to reduce the arrears to 8-19.

So although that was the end of the scoring it certainly wasn't the end of the action as the Gannets looked to get back into the game.With the scrum still dominant,they employed the rolling maul to good effect driving down to the five on more occasions than I care to remember,each time being stopped by a determined Leigh defensive line.In fact it was noted that if the 5 metre line were the goal line,the Gannets would have scored several tries and won comfortably so it's all credit to the Layabouts that they allowed them no further.

The Gees best chance of scoring was going to come out wide but their golden opportunity was spurned when Willy 'cocker' Garland took his eye off the ball for a split second with the goal line begging,the ball bouncing off his chest and going dead.

With the Gees pressing for the seemingly umpteenth time,the final whistle came and the Gannets were left wondering what could have been had they been a bit more inventive in their attacking play and not sleepwalked through the first period.Credit to Leigh though who played their part in an entertaining and niggle free game with some fine first half attacking play and a solid second half defensive effort..

Finally,fair play to captain Ben for allowing the visitors 5 subs and only using 3 himself even though there was an abundance of unemployed Trumpets littering the sidelines.The Gannets don't do ringers!

So next week is a rest week but don't worry,Sargey is arranging Saturday morning training for anyone that's interested.......crickets.

Until next time...