Zingari storm past league leaders

Canterbury 33pts. Gillingham Anchorians 2nd 14pts.

The Zingari continue their winning ways with an outstanding second half performance, sweeping aside top of the table Anchorians. Both sides made a cautious if not faltering start with handling errors being at the fore until things began to settled down into a regular pattern. The first break came twenty minutes into the half with Canterbury making a half line break opening up Gillingham’s defence for Patrick Collins to slice his way through for the cities first try, and Jacob Coffin conversion. However, minutes later their work was undone after Canterbury came offside at a maul and Anchorians took advantage with a quickly taken penalty setting up their forwards to go over near the posts, and with the conversion, all was level. Things now looked a little more settled, with both sides unable to gain control at the set piece, and the half ended with honours even.

Whatever was said at half time seemed to do the trick, the Zingari came out fired up and within minutes the Zingari forwards had Anchorians in trouble probing deep into their territory before Connor Langley finished off the move under the posts, and Coffin to slot the extras. Within minutes of the restart a turnover ball was exploited by the city backs to take the ball wide for Callium Townshend to make the touch down extending the lead. Gillingham rallied with a series of attacks using their forwards to make ground down the middle, only to be thwarted by the city’s ferocious tackling that eventually had Gillingham on the back foot. The Canterbury forwards began to show themselves masters of the turnover ball setting up the Zingari backs who then exploited the extra possession punching holes in the defence, and setting up attacking positions deep into the Anchorians territory. Gillingham’s scrambled defence initially stood up well, but as the pressure increased, they were forced to give away penalties in an attempt to stop the onslaught. This was exploited with Ash Nwapa making a charge breaking tackle to touch down for his first try, followed ten minutes later after a poor clearance kick was returned for Ash to finish off for his second, both converted by Coffin to put Canterbury out of sight. With the clock running down Anchorians got their chance after Canterbury made a defensive error that was snapped up by their wing man, who found the outside before going behind the posts for a well-deserved consolation converted try.