PARK HOUSE 20 CANTERBURY PILGRIMS 41

The Canterbury Pilgrims inflicted the first home defeat on Park Hosue for two and a half years, to consolidate third place in the league at the half-way point.

Canterbury started well, but after giving away a silly penalty they found themselves 3-0 down within minutes. Pilgrims then, with the help of good kicking from the hand  by Alex Williams, won a succession of line outs and from one of these Will ‘Bacon’ McColl drove over for Ollie Ashley-Jones to convert.  With Pilgrims dominating the scrums and Park House receiving a yellow card for a no arms in the tackle it became one way traffic but the home side held firm. Alex ‘Man of the Match’ Evans was making immense tackles, he and James Everett were also making good yardage in the drives. Then, on his debut, Ross Gladish dodged through, for Ollie to convert, 3-14. Alex Evans was taken out in the air and the home side went down to thirteen, with another yellow card.  Good runs by Jack Weaver,  and a Ross Howard kick chased by in form winger Adrian Geddes nearly produced a try but Pilgrims failed to score while the home side had two players off the field! James Everett then received a yellow for collapsing a maul ans the home side, back to full strength,  pressurised the visitors and scored a converted try before half-time to make it 10-14. Game on. The second half started in a dramatic way as Canterbury chased down a long kick, the bounce favoured them and Max Halliday scored for Ollie to convert, 10-21. Within minutes the Pilgrims won a penalty, duly converted by Ollie who next made a great interception and ran in a solo try. He missed the conversion but the lead was now 19 points. The game took another shift when Ollie Finn got a yellow for a neck roll, quickly followed by Freddie Holland-Oliver for a high tackle. It was Pilgrims who were now down to thirteen but it did not halt their momentum. A long kick was chased by Harry Andrews and Max Halliday and between them they won the ball for Max to score and Ollie Ashley-Jones converted. Park House hit back with an unconverted try but there was no stopping Jack Weaver, having another excellent game a full back, scoring a rollover try to push his side past the 40 point mark. Park’s consolation was the game’s final try after Harvey Furneaux received a yellow card for a high tackle,

Dover have gone top of Counties Kent 2, with Sevenoaks second and the Pilgrims third. December 17^th will See Dover come to the Marine Travel ground, don’t miss it, 3:00 kick off. Book your lunch on line to see this titanic struggle between two East Kent rugby rivals and friends. Next week Vigo come to play, 3:00 kick off. See you there.