Comeback falls short

Canterbury 5ths suffered an 18-17 loss against Thanet 3rds on Saturday. They found themselves 6-0 down inside 10 minutes after conceding soft penalties, with Thanet looking to have the measure of the City side. So it proved when they went further ahead through a converted try but the city side dug in, produced a solid defensive display and hit back with a try shortly before half-time. With the wind at Canterbury’s backs, the second half was a more even affair. Gareth Thomas ran 60 metres to score behind the posts, but the conversion failed, not helped by the kicking tee going missing. More pressure, brought an unconverted try for Nick Calder but Thanet replied with one of their own before Thomas cut through for the final try of the game, converted by a drop kick, but the final whistle came a little too early. Skipper Ben Cliff feels Saturday’s resounding victory over Askean is the perfect preparation for Whitstable’s biggest game of the season this weekend.

Saturday’s win at Reeves Way took the Blues back to the top of Shepherd Neame Kent 2 on points difference from Brockleians, who are their next opponents.

Both teams have maximum points after five matches and Cliff says Whitstable will travel to SE9 for their big showdown full of confidence.

He added: “We needed a bit of a performance after the last two games which had been a little bit underwhelming.

“The wind did not help when we played last week at Faversham (a game they won 22-13) but the conditions were good on Saturday and we produced some outstanding rugby.

“They just could not live with us and we were as pleased with the clean sheet as we were the points we scored because it’s something we talked about, not conceding.”

Cliff picked up three of Whitstable’s 11 tries, with Jamie Piggins, impressive on his first start at full-back, adding two more.

The remainder came from Marck Olive, Will Reid, secondrow Andy Newman – described as being everywhere by Cliff – replacements Leeroy Chaipa and Daniel Till, and scrum-half Andy Huey, who also kicked eight conversions in an out- standing individual display.

Brockleians maintained their 100% start with a 48-7 victory at Bexley and Cliff is expecting a tough encounter this weekend.

He said: “We’ve heard they are quite big up front and young in the backs so it may be a case of trying to grind them down and hoping our fitness will get us through.

“Saturday is going to be a big test but there’s a lot of confidence in the squad at the moment, we never go into games thinking we might lose, we go in expecting to perform and to get a positive result and that’s down to the self-belief Mal (Blues coach Mal Graves) has helped instill.”