Archive Match Reports
Sevenoaks Acorns 56 Medway Vets 0
05 Oct 2008
Sevenoaks Acorns opened their Evergreen cup campaign under new Captain Bryan Phillips with a crushing victory at home to Medway Vets.
Despite the terrible conditions, the support that turned out at Knole Paddock was a great sign as to the good feeling flowing through Sevenoaks rugby club at the moment. Supporters from the first, seconds, thirds and fifths turned out along with the club and Acorns supporters and their families.
Sevenoaks first try came 3 minutes from the kick off with flanker Rupert Daniel crashing over for one of his 3 tries. The complete dominance of the Sevenoaks backrow was underscored with openside flank Tom Kelly also going over for a hat trick of tries. Eighth man Malcolm McCollough didn't manage to get on the score sheet, but was vocal in his own defence that he set most of his colleagues tries up for them!
The day looked very ominous for Medway when Oaks second try came within 3 minutes of the first, with Tom Kelly going over from a dominant scrum near the Medway try line.
The 3rd try was pure magic, a huge punt downfield by fly half Jim Monks, having a dominant game with the boot, was returned with a poor kick from Medway, Jim Monks was on hand to collect the offering and burned through the Medway cover, offloading inside to the ever present Tom Kelly, who passed inside to the storming Rupert Daniel who then offloaded to the flying Leon Galler, who tore in untouched to place the ball under the posts. Monks duly converted.
With 4 more tries coming in the first half, Jim Monks scoring in the clubhouse corner, Tom Kelly getting his second after a charge down from a Medway 22 drop out, try 6, gifted by the Medway 9 for chirping the ref, came off a quick tap penalty from Jim Hopkins, who broke the first few tackles, offloaded to Malcolm McCullough, the big guy storming upfield for the umpteenth time who placed the ball with 4 defenders on him, picked up by Rupert Daniel who crashed over, try 7 offloaded to Adam Hutcheson who crunched over the tryline with 3 Medway defenders along for the ride.
Every facet of play was totally dominated by the Acorns, scrums were being won at will courtesy hooker, Jack Mortassagne and a totally dominant pack, lineouts were being severely disrupted by Trevor Nicholson and Adam Hutcheson, ball carrying and support was available in spades, Paul Vizard putting in a number of rumbles ably supported by Chi Chi Shirtcliff. A rout was on the cards.
The second half saw the introduction to the game of Tim Bampton for Hutcheson, this continued the dominance in the set pieces. Medway never gave up and did very well to limit the second half damage to only 2 tries; the conditions helped this limitation though, with the ball becoming a bar of soap. Rupert Daniel's 3rd try saw him taken off for a rest and Sean Sayers coming on to continue the forward devastation. Rob Thurnell coming on for Vizard was almost cruel.
The final try of the game came from Tom Kelly for him to complete the second hat trick of the game.
Evergreen debutants, Lex Hamilton and Simon Wight had solids games and provide more options to the Acorns armoury and the recently unretired Bill Parks showed all that he still has the pace and guile that served Sevenoaks so well. Miles Hayward and Ultan Kelly added pace out wide.
The next round draw will be eagerly anticipated. With a number of players injured or unavailable, the promise of this side to provide a real challenge this year is a good one.