Old Gravesendians vs. New Ash Green
54 5
On Sunday 17th December Old Gravesendians welcomed New Ash Green. Everyone got there bright and early to see that Ash Green didn’t have enough players. The line-up was decided and Jon Everid, Adam England, George Butler and Raife Norman would play for New Ash Green. New Ash Green won the toss and decided to go up the pitch, Captain of Old Gravesendians Jack Gibbs choose to kick off.
The game started with a great high drop kick by Jack Gibbs that was collected by NAG. The 1st 5 minutes was a little scrappy with many dropped balls and wayward passing. Minutes later great driving from the forwards and great passing from Jack Gibbs and Aaron Farnell enabled Centre Elliott Purdell to spin his marker and score. Jack Gibbs stepped up to slot the conversion through the sticks. With the momentum now on our side we was able to score quickly when from the restart kick Joe Cockle was tackled with the ball but managed to pop the ball up to debutant winger Jim Carley to run in his 1st try for Old G’s. Jon Cockle now fully warmed up placed the ball between the posts to give Gees a 14-0 lead.
The game took a turn for the worse when apparent Old G’s “indiscipline” caused lots of penalties to be conceded. Yet with all these penalties NAG weren’t able to score. The game was put further out of NAG’s grasp when poor hands from NAG enabled stand-in centre Elliott Purdell managed 2 poke the ball forward with his foot and slide in for his 2nd try of the game which Jon Cockle managed to convert easily. Good recycling of the ball and great passing enabled prop Lewis Moss to float a brilliantly timed pass to centre Aaron Farnell who stepped a couple of NAG players before diving over the line. Jon Cockle stepped up to slot yet another conversion straight through the posts.
With more penalties coming the ball managed to find its way out of touch and the half time whistle went. The second half started and after a few minutes the game settled down like the 1st half, with NAG winning lots of penalties but Gees still was piling on the pressure. The score could have got worse for NAG when quick passing enabled Aaron Farnell to somehow pass the ball under a player’s outstretched hand to winger Ben Harvey but sadly he knocked this on. However the score did get worse when a good scrum from NAG in there own 22 was followed by a poor pass that went over the dead ball zone. G’s won the scrum and quick ball put winger Sam Bauckham in but the referee said that the ball was held up by a NAG hand. From this scrum G’s thought they had lost it but Scrum-half Will Whittington managed to receive the ball and score. Sadly this conversion was missed by Jon.
The next try was scored shortly after this, when a scrum won by G’s in there own half. The ball came to centre Aaron Farnell who passed to outside-centre Elliott Purdell before executing a brilliant switch back with Aaron before he managed to out sprint the rest of the NAG backs before rolling over the line. Jon Cockle managed to easily put this over.
With this NAG went to take a quick restart kick which backfired when the ball finally arrived to Aaron who stepped a few players before offloading to centre Elliott who raced up the pitch to cheekily just place the ball over the line for his hat-trick. Confusion from the kick off for Gees enabled NAG to win a scrum that after a few plays resulted in NAG scoring in the corner and ultimately caused both G’s centers to slide through a massive puddle. With the full time whistle looming. A great restart kick and chase put us back on the offensive. There were a few dropped balls as the referee announced the final play. This seemed to awaken us with quick ball and keeping the ball alive playing as the welsh call it “sexy rugby.” The ball did finally arrive to Jon Cockle who then passed brilliantly to centre Aaron to flip over the line for his hat-trick. With the game secured prop Lewis Moss stepped up and slotted the conversion over with pure delight.
Although this turned out to be a relatively easy win the game was marred by the amount of penalties given away for the number of silly penalties given away. But big thanks must go to everyone that played and to everyone that helped out by playing for the opposition. A big congratulations must go to Jim Carley scored his 1st tries for Gees in this convincing victory. Big thanks must also go to Adam “caveman” *****, George Butler and Lewis ***** who started there 1st game for Gees.