FRFC 60 Leigh 10

The away fixture against Leigh earlier this season saw the Folkestone side playing with only thirteen men, even with those thirteen the score was kept to 34-24, so with the 3’s side looking very tidy on paper I was hoping for a good performance from the home side.

Folkestone received the kick-off well, something that had been worked on in training and talked about pre-match, along with keeping our approach to this game as tight and as structured as possible, keeping the white line fever to a minimum, it worked for most of the game.

First part of this match saw a territory battle swing one way and then the other as the pack kept mainly to their game plan and with the voices of Harrison and Spicer directing the phases the team progressed up the pitch in good shape. The Leigh response and return into the Stones half was generally due to an error of some sort from Folkestone. Leigh had a very competent kicker at ten who needed no invite to pin us back.

When the tries did come the flood gates started to open, First try was Scored by Paton closely followed by Slater.

Substitutions were made shortly before half time, Ceri App-Bryn & Tom Nunn gave way to the Woolford boys, James & Drew.

The Stones were performing well in all areas of the game, Steve Weller was having some bulldozer runs in to the opposition and getting some quick ball out to the waiting backs, if we had any consistent problem with our play at this stage it was around not looking at our options, to a man we were guilty of it, often we had overlaps wide which we lacked vision to capitalize on.

Line-outs were a mixed bag, we stole several from Leigh in the first half and secured most of our own ball, Some good calls and accurate throws defiantly gave us the upper hand, which was handy as Leigh kicked an awful lot of penalties to the touch-line.

Tries rained over from all directions, which was good for the score line but meant we got complacent and a little reckless in our play. Leigh managed to put two tries on us during this phase which had we played to our plan wouldn’t have happened.

A good win for the home side, ready for the biggest challenge of the season next week, Faversham away!

Man of the Match; Harry Paton, strong all afternoon, receiving the kicks and making the hard yards. His try set the ball rolling.

Team; White, CDB, Weller, Standing, Patton, Petts capt, Stringer, Bass, Harrison, Stringer, Slater, Ceri App-Bryn, Nunn, Cai App-Bryn, Burrows, Woolford J, Woolford A, Williamson, Roots.