Sunday 7th March 2004 - Kent Festival Preliminary Round U13 Match Report - At 8.00am the morning after Ladies Night, a very tired band of people met at Sparrow’s Den (that was just the parents). With a squad of 18 players, we set off to Medway RFC to take part in the Mazda Kent Festival for the U13’s. We noted on arrival that our group comprised of Medway and Canterbury. Having only lost one game all season, our expectations of doing well were fairly high. Having arrived at Medway at 9.00am and with our first kick-off not until 11.00am meant that we had plenty of time to warm up. It was good to see Chris Brown return to the fold after a knee injury and to have time to Blood Rory “the Tank” Hall, a recent recruit to the team. We also required the time to sort out the back line in light of the absence of Charlie Jennings (centre) through a serious injury sustained against Elthamians. Charlie we all wish you a speedy recovery. Pool Matches Medway. Lost 0 – 10. We commenced our assault on the Tournament against the home side “Medway”. Half time came and went and despite being camped on their 22 for most of the first half, and having had seemed to be a perfectly legitimate try disallowed, we entered the second half 0-0. The second half started off pretty much the same as the first, with Becc’s continuing to demonstrate their superiority. However, due to great defensive work by Medway, we were unable to put any points on the board. This was to be our downfall as following some very interesting refereeing decisions, Medway managed to score two breakaway ties in quick succession to end up as eventual winners. Canterbury. Lost 0 – 10. Next up was Canterbury. This was a very tight, physical contest with no quarter being given by either side. In the end, Canterbury the stronger looking side on the day managed to beat us by 2 tries despite some valiant defensive work by Becc’s. Bowl Competition Coming third in our group mean’t that for the knockout stages of the competition, we would be in the Bowl Competition. Gravesend Won 10 – 0. Our Quarter Final pitched us against Gravesend, a team we have not come across before. This was to be a reasonably niggly game with Gravesend employing some unusual tactics, most notably at the line out. Becc’s however stuck to the task in hand and two tries to nil later had booked themselves a place in the Semi-Finals against Alleynians. O.Alleyanians. Won 28 -7. Old Alleynians are a team well known to us and despite having beaten them earlier in the season, a win was no certainty. They are a very strong mauling side and our game plan was to focus on setting up quick ruck ball to release our reshuffled back line (Bobby Coles moving back into the back row following C J Murphy breaking his nose). For the first time that day, the boys went at the task straight from the kick-off and tore into the opposition. Defensively, Becc’s were awesome, most notably Bobby Coles, Jamie Keate, Andrew Murray and Michael O’Flynn, burying anything that moved. With the pack firing on all cylinders, we were able to secure some quick ball enabling us to release our back line. Despite two very quick tries by Bobby Coles early on, Alleynians to their credit, never gave up and continued to take the game back to us. With Becc’s continued defensive work, we were able to turn over a lot of their ball to our fly-half, Jamie Keate, where Michael Glover and James Messer were then able to pretty much strike at will and finish off some great moves. The two best moves of the day resulting in tries were the double switch between our two centres (Michael Glover and James Messer) and a great catch from the kick-off by Dan Webb who raced back at the defence at the last minute flipping the ball inside to Bobby Coles coming on at pace and into space to charge off down the field with no-one insight. The final score was a thoroughly deserved 28 – 7 victory to Becc’s, booking a place in the Bowl Final to be held at Aylesford on the 4th April with opponents being local rivals Westcombe Park.