Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Blues hit form with devastating display
Bobby Powell and Josh Booty both scored five tries as Whitstable blew away Askeans in Shepherd Neame Kent 2 on Saturday, writes Mark Stokes.
The Blues ran in 14 tries on the way to their biggest victory of the season to provide the perfect response to last week’s one-point defeat at Lordswood.
Player-coach Mal Graves had urged his three quarters to ‘liven up’ after that 8-7 loss in Medway and he admitted the players deserved every credit for the turnaround in form.
He added: “The boys took on board what I said last week, the intensity at training was excellent and on Saturday it was the most accurate we’ve been since I’ve been here.
“Everything just seemed to click. We were a lot better in the two-on-ones, the threeon-twos and we didn’t leave much out there at all.
“We kept our discipline, stuck to our structures and, for the first time, looked a really solid team.”
Man-of-the-match Powell’s switch from football to rugby is already proving a profitable one for the Blues and Graves reckons that after several previous experiments, they may well have found his best position. He said: “We’ve tried Bobby at second row and also at centre but on Saturday we put him on the wing and just said get the ball in your hands and run.
“He’s a big lad with good strength and some of his tries were brilliant.”
Whitstable’s other try scorers were Kieran Woolf, Sam Holness, Leeroy Chaipa and Marck Olive with Andy Huey and Jack Barrow sharing the conversions.
Tony Cairney made a welcome return at centre and Graves says his steadying influence helped bring the best of out his younger team-mates.
He said: “We had a better mix (of ages) across the pitch and Tony definitely gave us stability in the backs. He just does everything well.”
Whitstable remain fifth and travel to next-to-bottom Erith on Saturday.
‘We kept our discipline and for the first time, looked a really solid team’