Old Dunstonian 17 Deal & Betteshanger 14

The match had a very end of season feel about it with little of the competitive needle of previous encounters. The demob happy nature of the afternoon was further endorsed by D & B's players appearing in the bar in an extraordinary array of fancy dress. Its good to see that rugby at this level is not all wedge and training and that beer and silliness still has its place.

Its certainly not all training down at OD's as a talented side continues to produce results that are less than the sum of their individual parts. The small errors and slight lack of cohesion meant that a game that perhaps could have been won by a bigger margin was in doubt until the death.

D & B opened the scoring when their powerful right wing enjoyed the freedom of Park Langley to touch down for an early converted score. D's replied almost immediately, with a well worked unconverted score from Joe Murray. Further pressure from the old boys saw Smith touch down for a 10 - 7 lead and with the favour of the slope for the second period. With probably 20 minutes left Lee Smith crashed over under the posts for a converted score and a ten point advantage. Just as thoughts began to turn to the bonus point and a comfortable margin of victory, D & B drove over for a well converted score and suddenly a few missed opportunities were beginning to look costly. Fortunately the game was closed out without further incident.

A number of good performances are worthy of mention. Jeremy Scott, restored to the 9 shirt, was excellent, Bruce Jones was the pick of the forwards, just shading Tom Burnham who produced a performance of some authority. Joe Murray at centre continues to ask questions of every midfield he comes up against.

With one league fixture to come (Sevenoaks away) the old boys sit in 7th, on 40 points. That will be their finishing position, and subject to results on the last weekend will be a "real" position, eg. they will finish in 7th even if Maidstone, D & B et al had their points deductions added back on.

Next week is the small matter of a Kent Cup semi, away at Gravesend, currently flourishing in National 3 so a challenging afternoon awaits. We don't often find ourselves one game from Wembley (well ok, Canterbury) so lets see a decent presence on the touchline to cheer the old boys on.