Blues’ defeat could end up as blessing

Whitstable lost for only the second time this season on Saturday but player-coach Mal Graves thinks their defeat at Foots Cray may turn out to be no bad thing. The Blues had gone top of Kent 2 the previous week but immediately surrendered the position back to Brockleians, who lead by a point after receiving a walkover win at home to Greenwich. Graves had talked last week about the club being exactly where they wanted to be but he feels they might benefit from the Foots Cray defeat in the long run. He said: “I recently read a piece by Eddie Jones (the England head coach) in which he said being in a good place is not always a great place to be because you can lose sight of the things that put there. “It was not a lack of attitude or commitment to training, the reason we lost was that too many good players did not perform. “I constantly tell the boys that to get promotion you need consistency, you need to be producing eight out of 10 performances week in week out. I can’t have 10s one week and fours the next but we had too many fours on Saturday. “The dressing room was a sombre place after the game but sometimes it’s no bad thing to eat a bit of humble pie.” Graves estimated third-placed Foots Cray probably had 80% of possession but so good was Whitstable’s defence the home side scored just one converted try in the first half and Andy Huey’s penalty meant that only four points separated the sides at the break. Whitstable then got in front, as flanker Eanna Flanagan crossed for an early try but he was off the pitch, sinbinned for a high tackle, when Foots Cray took advantage of an overlap to score the decisive try 10 minutes from time Graves added: “We defended fantastically well and our scrummaging, particularly from Ryan Crane, was good but our lineout did not really function, our kicking lacked intelligence and the little ball we did get we did not make good enough use of. “I did not think we still had those type of performances in us but we remain in control of our own destiny. If we win our games we’ll be fine.” Blues return to action on Saturday, January 27, with a home derby against Faversham.