Hard fought, hard won

Canterbury 47 – Sittingbourne 2nd 40

The Zingari avenged their earlier defeat at the hands of Sittingbourne 2nds in an exciting hard-fought contest that went down to the wire. It was the Zingari that opened with will Rayner breaking free on the outside to go over in the corner followed by George Thomas tackle breaking run to go under the posts for the simple conversion. More was to follow as Sittingbourne failed to subdue Canterbury’s backs as they splintered the defence finished with Jake Upward followed father and son pairing in the centres putting away his son George Thomas for his second converted try. This was all beginning to look one way until the last ten minutes of the half when Sittingbourne played to their strengths keeping the ball tight and using their powerful forwards driving within a few meters of the city before crashing over from short range to put themselves on the score board. This tactic proved to be successful and was repeated five minutes later with a score under the posts, and on the stroke of halftime Canterbury succumbed to another driving maul to reduce the city to seven points at halftime.

The start of the second half could not have been worse for the city side to conceding a penalty try after bring down a driving maul on their line levelling the scores. Canterbury who never looked happy against Sittingbourne’s well drilled heavier pack looked happier in the loose, it was down to Jake Forrest to reestablish their lead with a crashing run touching down near the posts. A few minutes later a Will Rayner gathered a poor clearance kick and jinked his way through a scatted defence before touching down behind the posts. Unable to cope with the city backs Sittingbourne reverted to their forward power with a drive from a five-meter lineout to snatch a converted try back. With the game going into the last five minutes, it was time for George Thomas hat trick as he handed off would be tacklers before dotting down behind the posts, and with Sam Roud conversions looked like a winning margin. Sittingbourne had other ideas, and on the stroke of full time they again used their rolling maul to great effect to reduce the city lead. The city side then had to endure six minutes of extra time with both teams battling it out before the Zingari could claim one of their hardest league wins of the season.

Tries

George Thomas 3
Jake Forrest 1
Will Rayner 2
Jake Upward 1

Conversions

Sam Roud 6