Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Plenty of reasons to be cheerful
Tom Best over for the try.
Best turned provider for the second score with a probing kick but it was the skill and opportunism of wing Kieran Thompson that delivered the points.
He leaped above his opposite number at the top of the bounce and stole away to the line.
By half-time, Canterbury had pushed the lead to 12, thanks to two conversions from Ollie Best and a textbook first-phase move which saw JJ Murray make the break and Sayers finish off with the try.
The question now was whether Canterbury would sink into the second-half lethargy that has marred their first two league games.
Not this time as they came out firing and scored twice in the first five minutes.
Ollie Best punished Broadstreet’s defensive fault lines with a pin-point kick which Sayers collected to earn the bonus point.
Charlie Kingsman got the fifth touchdown, converted by Best, after Broadstreet were stripped of possession and the game was up for the visitors.
When they did mount brief pressure, Canterbury’s defence was tight and organised and they began to dominate in every area.
The lineout, under the expert guidance of Matt Corker, did a magnificent demolition job, driving mauls had Broadstreet in disarray and they could only cling on.
Gibbons was sin binned and Roche punished it with a pick up and powerful 40-metre run for try No.6 and in the closing minutes, he was released by Jimmy Green’s ass for his second.
There will be tougher days for Canterbury but in answering Andy Pratt’s call, they made a positive statement, Canterbury: C.kingsman, K.thompson, JJ Murraty,t.best (repl F.morgan), H.sayers, (repl G.hilton, O.best, D.smart,j.green, S.rogers, S.kenny (repl T.little), L.whetton, M.corker, M.cantwell (repl L.woodbridge), S.roche, G.micans (repl T.rogers).
tricks from debutant Max Davis and another by Graeme Francis got Pilgrims’ Zoo League season away to a flying start, with a 62-10 win against Colchester 2nds.
After going behind to an early penalty, another outstanding performer, Seb Clark, scored the first of his side’s 10 tries, six of them converted by Alex Miller.
Given all the possession they needed by a dominant pack, the Canterbury backs cut loose. They stacked up a 26-3 led by half-time with tries tries from Will Bettles, Max Davis – his first for the club – and Francis.
The second half saw Francis cross twice more, each time showing a superb dummy, but at 38-3, Colchester enjoyed a better spell and the Pilgrims’ Jamie Dowkes was yellow carded.
It didn’t stop Davis getting another try after a storming run by Clark but the visitors eased the pain a little with a converted try of their own.
Pilgrims, however, were in no mood to let up and rounded off an impressive victory with further scores from James Shaw and Will Hilton.