The Start Of Things To Come?

Old Elthamians started the game looking sharp & well drilled, however great work from Jarvis in the pack secured a Folkestone turnover which swiftly found its way to Randall, who simply drew two players and offloaded to Walton for him to use his gas, 7-0.
This pattern continued throughout the first half- any attacking threat shown by OE was dealt with by the Folkestone pack, and the trio of Silvey / Walton / Randall were simply too good for their opposite men when the ball found its way out to the backs. Walton went over for another two, Silvey showed his brutal combination of pace and triceps to get on the scoresheet, Randall took a break from setting up tries to get one of his own & Johnson showed his feet from fullback to run in a superb individual try from his own 10m line. The try of the half however was a conglomeration of outrageous offloads and cutting running lines, Randall inexplicably managed to offload the ball to Silvey with about 4 OE backs hanging off him and the ball was passed between half of the Folkestone team before the final gap opened up allowing Tim Wood to cross for the score. Wood in fact could have had another, a great steal and break from Silvey Jr saw Tim one on one with the full back and showing some Walton-esque pace, however he then remembered he was a second row - falling over and messing up the offload. OE's occasional attacking threats were routinely dealt with by the Folkestone pack, with Ricky Wincote coming off his wing to get a synchronised gasp from the crowd with a crunching hit. OE's best chance of the half came from a cross kick chase from which the referee awarded a try, not realising the ball had clearly been put down about 3m short of the line. To his credit the referee realised his error and apologised to both teams. Unfortunately Wincote had to leave the field having pulled his hamstring just before half time, and with the joint Folkestone subs all used by the 1st team Stones were left with no choice but to play the remainder of the game a man down.

Complacency could well have set in at this point but rousing words from the skipper ensured this was not the case (as well as talk of Bloomfield's mysterious obsession with the 80 point margin). The Folkestone pack continued to dominate, rolling mauls were used to superb effect throughout the second half and in so many instances OE's had no reply to Folkestone's power up front. The front row of Green / Box / Snare looked as though they could take on the opposition pack on their own, Wood & Jarvis provided both the shove and the looks from the second row, and Smith & Fullerton outgunned their back row opposition despite having 2/3rds of the manpower, it was a superb Folkestone performance. Simpson at 9 kept distributing the ball to SIlvey (as well as nailing his opposite man whenever Folkestone did not have the ball), who was pulling the strings at 10. Walton got another couple, Johnson again used his scintiating pace to score and Snare showed his power from 30cm to battle over the line after great work from Wood. The blip on the scoreline came from an interception, for once Silvey's passing radar faltered & the OE centre finally had something to show for his teams efforts. The game was topped off with a try of individual magic from the younger Silvey, cutting a superb inline to wrong foot the defence before stepping the full back to score under the posts. Even in view of the scoreline and the Habana-esque try, his elder brother still insisted on taking the conversion. With 15 minutes remaining the referee decided, having consulted with Smith, that there was no point in continuing - the final score was 90-7. Man of the Match is very difficult due to the nature of the game but it has to go to Alex Box, held up agonisingly short for his own try but was the constant troublemaker within the Folkestone pack, turning over mauls and taking scrums against the head.

Try Scorers
Walton x 5
Silvey x 3
Johnson x 2
Randall x 1
Silvey x 1
Wood x 1
Snare x 1

Conversions
Walton x 7
Silvey x 4