The 2nds fought back in the second half to emulate the 1stXV!

Folkestone 2ndXV 29 Whitstable 2ndXV 41.
Saturday 29th. September 2018. Shepherd Neame Late Red 3. Report by Steve Hughes.

This was a game which took one and three-quarter hours to complete with numerous stoppages and ended up with three Red Cards being issued and two yellow cards. Having said that, it was not a violent game by any standard and four of those cards emanated from one incident.
Folkestone skipper Bert Guilfoyle found he had a mixture of players to select from as the 1st XV had elevated some of his players and he ended up with a number of youngsters and 3rd team players. They took a while to settle down and were seven points down within 5 minutes when the Whitstable centre crashed through under the posts for a converted try - 0 - 7.
Folkestone were initially struggling against a heavy pack and were required to resort to desperate defence. Folkestone three quarters were guilty of being sucked in to the loose mauls leaving forward to guard their positions. Also, Folkestone's penalty count was high allowing the visitors to pin them back into their own red zone and from a scrum on their line the visiting scrum half was able to squeeze over for another converted try after 20 minutes. 0 - 14.
A penalty kick by Jerome Kilbride took the game down to the Whitstable 5 metre line and with a clean take from the line out Louis Watson started a move which saw Shane Hills dragged down in front of the posts but the continued movement looked promising. Only a timely interception by the opposition centre saved a score and saw the ball end up in a line out on the Folkestone five metre. Winning the ball, Whitstable trundled over for another try which went unconverted. 0 - 19. Another try followed quickly using the same format to see the visitors move further ahead 0 – 24.
Folkestone were moving the ball along the line but not quick enough to break the through. However, Louis Watson found space on the outside and Shane Hills made ground up the middle. Billy Monk replaced Luke McAdam and his extra weight helped steady the Folkestone pack who were now holding their own in the set pieces. They were not so lucky in the line outs which were dominated by the visitors and it was hard to understand why they continued to kick for touch from penalties when 'tap and go' would have been the better option. Will O'Donnell and Ross Clark were an effective half back pair but the ball could not find its way to the wings often enough with Louis Watson and Jerome Kilbride waiting to pounce.
Louis Watson gathered a Whitstable kick ahead to make a break upfield to find Billy Monk taking it on to feed Kyran Page who crossed to score and Jerome Kilbride converted just on the half time whistle. 7 - 29.
Folkestone restarted the game with renewed fire and scored when Bert Guilfoyle fed Jerome Kilbride. Joseph Himbury was following up and fed Mason Colchester-Long who crossed for an unconverted try 12 - 29.
Whitstable then rattled in two quick tries to take the score to 12 - 41 just before the incident which altered the course of the match. From a seemingly harmless shove off the ball, Luke Simpson took exception and handbags were waved which resulted in the issue of two red cards and a yellow to Whitstable and a red card to Luke Simpson for Folkestone. This took ages to sort out - hence the extra time but as Folkestone were playing against twelve men at one point they were able to capitalise on the situation. Billy Monk scored after a characteristic bulldozing run, the conversion was missed making the score 17 - 41
Then William O'Donnell scored a try after a move upfield by Louis Watson and Shane Hills, converted by Gareth Webber. 24 - 41. Finally, another Louis Watson run saw him feed Shane Hills to score another unconverted try 29 - 41.

Another try was on the cards when, this time, Shane Hills fed Louis Watson on the unsighted referee who called it a forward pass shortly before the final whistle.
It must be said that the number of youngsters who played gives the Club hope for the future with players such as Louis Watson (my Man of the Match) skipper Bert Guilfoyle, Mason Colchester-Long, William O'Donnell, Luke McAdam, Ben Lewis, Joseph Himbury and Paul Croucher.

Team: Peter White, Gareth Webber, Keith Packham; Mason-Colchester-Long, Billy Monk; Bert Guilfoyle (Capt.), Joseph Himbury, Thomas Clark; William O’Donnell, Ross Clark; Luke McAdam, Shane Hills, Jerome Kilbride, Louis Watson; Luke Simpson.
Subs: Simon Himbury, Ben Lewis, Solomon Fudge, Kyran Page, Steven Rees.
Scorers: Kyran Page 5; Jerome Kilbride 2; Mason Colchester-Long 5; William O’Donnell 5; Gareth Webber 2; Shane Hills 5.