Match report – Thanet 3rds V Zingari

Thanet 18pts. Canterbury 17pts

The Zingari suffered a setback in their East Kent League losing out to Thanet 3rd by the narrowest possible margin. This was a fiercely fought contest from the beginning as you would expect with these two sides, with most of the action taking place midfield. It was Canterbury who first managed the break through with a well taken break for Will Rayner to touch down, with Brad Allchurch conversion to follow. This spurred Thanet a few minutes later into action with an unconverted try of their own, Thanet maintained the pressure and were soon rewarded with their second try of the afternoon. The city defence tightened and looked to be managing the situation when on the stroke of halftime Thanet broke free from a maul outside the Canterbury twenty-two finding themselves in the clear to touch down.

At the turn round the halftime team talk must have worked as the city side clawed their way back bottling up Thanet in the midfield before making some probing attacks of their own, this eventually gave Will Rayner the chance to finish off his second try of the afternoon with Brad Allchurch adding the extras. With a single point now separating the two sides the city side put on the pressure, only to be blocked by a desperate Thanet defence. This held out until deep into stoppage time before they were forced into conceding a penalty converted by Allchurch to put the city side ahead. The referee decided there was still time for the restart that Canterbury gathered deep in their twenty-two when a moment of madness struck, instead of keeping the ball tight they decided to play the ball wide with disastrous consequences conceding a penalty to give Thanet the win with the last kick of the game.