Blues miss out again

CRANBROOK WHITSTABLE

Mal Graves admits he is running out of things to say about Whitstable’s season in Shepherd Neame Kent 1. Away to fifth-placed Cranbrook on Saturday they competed well in many facets of the game only to again come away with nothing to show for their efforts. A converted try in each half moved the home side into a 14-0 lead before Bobby Powell crossed for a late consolation. The conversion was missed, denying the Blues a losing bonus point, and that, says player-coach Graves, is typical of their campaign. They had been beaten 46-0 at home by Cranbrook before Christmas. Graves explained: “Other than the two games against Ashford (where they were beaten 63-8 and 55-0) and one against Anchorians (45-0) we’ve been competitive, but if you don’t capitalise on three-on-ones, two-onones you’re not going to win many games of rugby. “The processes are good, we get ourselves into good positions but then we’re not taking our opportunities.

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“We’re getting into a nasty habit of losing games we should be winning, it’s incredibly frustrating.” A rib injury sustained in the last game against HSBC meant Graves had to watch from the sidelines, and he did say there were a number of positives, not least of which was a fine debut by young back row, Ben King, up from the 2nd XV. He added: “We had dominance in the scrum, our clearance kicking was excellent, we played rugby in the right areas, we’ve just got to be a little bit cuter and take the chances that come our way.” Whitstable remain in the bottom three, but still have to play the two teams below them, Footscray and Sheppey, this month. They return to the Chaucer Ground on Saturday when they host King’s College Hospital who beat them 36-15 away in November.