Old Boys lift Vase

10:05am Thursday 15th May 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Old Gravesendians 20-12 Medway

OLD Gravesendians retained the Kent Vase by overcoming the resilient challenge of Kent Two champions Medway on a very warm day in Canterbury.

The conditions tested the players' stamina to the full, but it did not prevent them from producing an exciting game for the large contingent of travelling supporters present from both clubs.

Both teams were evenly matched in the opening exchanges with strong defences and both possessed talented backs capable of turning the game in an instant.

Gravesendians were competing in their fourth Vase final in recent years and the experience may have given them the edge against a young and developing Medway team.

Old Gs scored three tries to two from Medway, all from backs, proving the ambition to play exciting open rugby.

After 15 minutes of energy sapping confrontation, Old Gs put together a great backs move to open the scoring.

Michael Hodge made a dummy run, opening the way for full back Marcus D'Cunha to hit the line at pace, wrong-footed the defence and headed for the corner.

His body movement deceived the last two defenders to allow him just enough space to touch down.

It was not long before D'Cunha was testing Medway's defences again.

He left a trail of flailing defenders in his wake as he took off down the middle of the pitch.

A desperate tap tackle from the last defender tripped him up with the line at his mercy, but he managed to pop the ball up to the ever vigilant Matt Holdstock who finished the move off, scoring under the posts and Richard Oxtoby converted.

Old Gs made the mistake of easing off and poor tackling allowed Medway to respond almost immediately through their very elusive winger, David Soledolu, who scored under the posts.

Dafydd Ruffell converted to reduce the margin to 12-7 at half-time.

Old Gs had the luck to be first to score early in the second half.

Medway dropped the ball while trying to make progress through their backs.

Scrum half Dan D'Cunha hacked on, picked up, and although tackled into touch, put in a great pass to the supporting Matt Holdstock.

The winger forced his way over in the corner for the decisive score to a cacophony of sound from a mixture of bugles, hooters, drums, shouts and general crowd hysteria.

Gravesendians nearly put the game well beyond Medway's reach soon afterwards.

A deft kick through was almost collected by Holdstock, who was unlucky not to score his hat-trick try when Medway's full back just managed to snatch the bouncing ball from Holdstock's grasp to save five points.

The pressure continued, which allowed Richard Oxtoby to convert a penalty to increase the lead to 20-7 before Medway struck back with a well constructed try.

This was triggered by a fine break from their speedy fly half Glen Wadsworth and finished by the equally quick winger Rob Ellis to complete the scoring.