Bulls await promotion fate
Aylesford Bulls clinched possible promotion with a 46-14 away win against Maidstone.
Bulls brought running rugby to a rock-hard pitch at The Mote, crossing the line six times for a bonus-point victory.
The result means Aylesford finish second in London 3 South East. Usually the top two go up, but the RFU are yet to confirm if that will happen this year.
Meanwhile, Maidstone, in 11th place from 12 clubs, look set to drop down to Kent 1.
Bulls crossed in record time thanks to Phil Wilkins, who found himself in the right place to pounce on scrappy ball and wrestle over. Chester Clough slotted a tricky conversion.
But Maidstone, who had some strong runners, scooted over under the posts to level the score.
Will Reynolds then crossed for a converted try before a touchdown from Ben Ridout and two Clough penalties brought the half to a close at 27-7.
Bulls’ captain Dan Batsone muscled over to open the secondhalf scoring, then prolific centre Luke Stroud cut a beautiful line and ran through several home defenders to crash over under the posts.
Minutes later Clough threw an audacious dummy pass before jinking infield and under to close Bulls’ account.
Maidstone had the last say, though, somehow dotting down a speculative crossfield kick which two Bulls players were judged not to have reached in time. n A depleted Tonbridge Juddians lost 34-21 to Plymouth Albion in National League 1.
TJs made the 250-mile journey to Plymouth for the first time in their history with a side heavily hit by injury, particularly the pack.
This showed early on as Plymouth gained the upper hand at the scrum and the maul. And when Matt Foulds was sent to the sin-bin in the opening 10 minutes for pulling down a driving maul things looked ominous.
So it proved as Plymouth crashed over for a penalty try within the first quarter.
However, some excellent quick thinking from Ryan TaylorDennehy and Duncan Tout saw Judds take the kick-off quickly with Albion caught napping.
Tout regathered and offloaded back inside to Taylor-Dennehy to see the scores at 7-7.
Three quick Albion tries followed as they made the most of their advantage in the setpiece.
The away side knew that in the second half they would have to open up to level things up and upped the tempo by moving the larger pack around, gaining field position, but, as has been the case for much of
this season, Tonbridge lacked the cutting edge.
When Albion raced away with an intercept just as TJs looked to build some momentum the game was all but over, yet they rallied in the final 15 minutes.
First came a penalty try as Judds’ forwards got one back on Plymouth following strong work to reduce the hosts to 14, then Kieran Sassone went over.
Juddians host Leeds Tykes on Saturday.