On Saturday Old Reigatian 1st XV travelled to Rochester to play the rearranged fixture against Medway RFC which was postponed due to a frozen pitch earlier in the season.
With any rearranged fixture some players were unavailable due to commitments made when it was a free weekend. Therefore OR’s were missing No8 Joey Goldsmith and Winger Harrison Mitchell and with Ryan Taylor Travers out for a few weeks with a rib injury and LineOut Captain Dan Grant nursing an injured Ankle it was a much changed Team.
Grant and Taylor Travers were clearly missed with the Reigate team struggling to secure much Line Out ball and were starved of the ball for long periods of the fixture. Medway some 4 places above OR’s in the League looked confident with the ball in hand with some big powerful forwards and an outstanding outside centre.
However it wasn’t until the 17th minute that the Medway backs broke through the determined Reigatian defence and scored on the left Winger. The conversion was unsuccessful and the home side moved into a 5-0 lead.
Full credit to OR’s who came back at the home team and after the forwards trying to force they way over the try line the ball was moved to the left wing where Tom Allen held the last defender to put Will Parker in the corner to level the scores.
The score remained level until the 38th minute of the first half when a midfield tackle was broken and the dangerous Medway backs finally found some space and made no mistake in scoring again the kick was unsuccessful with the ground very difficult for kicking at half time Medway held a 5 point advantage 10-5.
The second half both teams went toe to toe with the Home side having the majority of the ball but Reigatian showing great spirit in defence. And it wasn’t until eight minutes left on the clock that Medway finally scored again to move the score a converted try to move the score to 17-5 this seems to take the fight out of the Reigate team and Medway were able to score again with the last move of the game to win 24-5. The scoreline probably flattered the Kent Team and the Reigate team should be proud of a performance that showed a lot of spirit and commitment,
Life doesn’t get any easier for the 1st XV with League leaders Beckenham travelling to Park Lane next Saturday.
Old Reigatian 1st XV
1 Paul Marshall 2 Ciaran Nestor 3 Toby Collister 4 Reilly Franklin Talbot © 5 Seb Courtney Walker 6 David Niven 7 Will Godwin 8 Oli Brooks 9 Alex Skinner 10 Ben Holder 11 Finn Coyle 12 Tom Baldwin 13 Tom Allen 14 Will Parker 15 Tom Woodford 16 Val Garrec 17 Ed Forsyth 18 Jonny Bridges
