Stoke hand to the home side!

Canterbury 24 pts v Basingstoke 10 pts

Leading 10-7 at half time it looked like F-X backed Stoke were heading for their first win of the season only for the second half performance to allow the home side to score 17 unanswered points. On a blustery afternoon early play was scrappy with no pattern of play from either team. Stoke struck first blood when on their second serious venue into Canterbury's half they were awarded a penalty 30 metres out which Humberstone duly converted to take a 3-nil lead.Stoke were defending well throughout the team and easily kept the home side at bay. Like with so many scores against Stoke this year it was not the opposition who created a try but they capitalise on a Stoke error.This was the case on 25 minutes when a mis-directed pass on their own 22 was dropped in midfield and a Canterbury player kicked the loose ball to the try line and won the chase for the touchdown in front of the posts which was converted to lead 7-3. The home side then had a second row yellow carded to give advantage to Stoke on 29 minutes. During the 10 minutes he was off Stoke played their best rugby of the afternoon. Runners became available with Hobden and Appleby to the fore and were rewarded with a penalty on 32 minutes which Humberstone narrowly missed. With time running out in the 1st half Feausi made a break only for the move to break down 2 metres from the home side's line and their line out. A 2 man line was called but a misdirected throw was collected by Dixon and the rest of the forwards joined him to drive him over the line with Humberstone adding a fine conversion 5 metres in from touch.

With optimism at the start of the half that a win was on Stoke found themselves on the back foot by conceding a penalty on 45 minutes which the home side missed. Canterbury were now playing the better rugby and were rewarded with a try on 50 minutes which was converted to take the lead 14-10 a lead which they did not surrender. 5 Minutes later Stoke shot themselves in the foot again when a pass went to the wrong player and a resultant poor kick allowed the opposition to counter from their own half. Their right wing brushed aside 3 tackles allowing him to link up with his forwards who re-cycled the ball and spin play to the left wing to score in the corner for an uncovered try,19-10. Still with hope that Stoke could claw their way back into the game they slipped into their old way of conceding possession by forcing the play and with some unnecessary kicking. On 70 minutes the home team completed the scoring by rounding off pressure with a chip over the Stoke defence for a further 5 points.
Again this was very much a game that Stoke lost through their own errors but showing only in brief phases that the can play good rugby.

Man of the match Hobden played well but too many players went into their shells when their was an opportunity to go and win the game.

After Dixon added "We have got a lot of work to do before our next game in two weeks time. An area we need to put right is that of ball retention both in hand and also in not kicking the ball away. We will work hard and if necessary will add extra training sessions if needby"

Team:M Lucas, B Parsons, E Chimbina(O Rogers), V Feausi, S Buckland, S humberstone, D Lillywhite, P Perkins, M Evans(capt.), S hobden, M Francis(C Hampson), A Wilson, S Appleby, J Dixon, T Northcote(I White)

link to RFU site