Men’s 1st XV v Folkestone 08/03/2008

Home – London 4 South East

Report by Andy Ward

Won 38-17

Hove entertained Folkestone on Saturday – thus meeting one of only two teams who have beaten Hove on their travels thus far this season. Way back on 15th September 2007 in the first league game of the season Folkestone triumphed 25-7 over a Hove team denuded by many of the team attending Matt Sole’s wedding.

So, what would the return fixture bring? With Hove riding high in second position in the table and already promoted and Folkestone adrift third from bottom. After having completed pre-match duties (with the much appreciated assistance of Billy “Two Hats” Cotter, your ersatz Playing Manager assumed his more usual role of amanuensis for the game.

Well, the game started on time at 15:00 on a wet and windy day and we were soon treated to that “rara avis” of Hove going behind at a home game! Shock horror! Folkestone broke from their half and gained a penalty in the Hove 22 and their kicker slotted it home unaffected by the blustery conditions.

Your scribe had hardly got his pencil out to record this, but Statto – wearing a rather unfashionable blue hat had already kicked the Hove scoreboard into life and it was reading 0-3. Possibly a first as those coming out late from lunch would immediately lose any ennui and wonder what would be the final outcome.

Well, as said, Folkestone had opened the scoring and Hove then kicked off at the restart. The ball was fed out to the right and winger James Finlason went in hot pursuit. The ball bounced and confused the Folkestone defender as though it were a sought after gewgaw and his resultant inchoate flap was always doomed to failure.

Skirting the poor unfortunate lad, James burst through and touched the ball down for the first of his tries this afternoon. Up stepped Dan Penney and a further two points to add to James’ five were added to the Hove account – a fact confirmed by Noddy Blue Hat (Statto) as he adjusted the electronic scoreboard to read Hove 7 Visitors 3.

Following the 7 point uplift by James and Dan, in the 13th minute – a mere 6 minutes later – Adam Phillips in another extempore act swerved, stepped and bewildered the Folkestone defence and touched down by the posts to give an easy opportunity for Dan to double his personal points tally for the game – which he graciously accepted. Hove 14 Folkestone 3 read the Hove scoreboard which made for a more acceptable after lunch digestion for the Hove supporters.

Sadly, some questionable defence saw Folkestone gain a try in the 17th minute which they duly converted and this was to be the last score before half time – which duly arrived with the score at 14-10. The observant amongst you may have seen the referee sprinting off the pitch as he blew for half time. As we were questioning had enough time been added on for the spate of injuries being tended to – it became clear that the referee’s needs must have been greater.

The second half duly started five minutes after the first had ended and play continued. Hove – in the form of Alex Robertson – attacked the ball from kick off and a mere 40 seconds was on the clock when he dived over for a try to take Hove’s scored to 19 for the merest of moments before Dan surged us forward to the 21 mark. Four minutes later, James Finlason made a further break and raced in for his second try of the game and the score leaped to – and remained at – 26 as the conversion attempt was missed by Dan.

Alas and alack in a spooky repetition of the first half – after two Hove tries – Folkestone scored their second try of the game and with the conversion took the score to 26-17 – where, it transpired, their score would remain.

Hove, however were not finished although in the 70th minute Matt Sole’s contribution to the game was, as an injury forced him to leave the field and suffer for the rest of time by everyone pointing at him and saying “he was the one replaced by Adam Tunesi!”. Clearly, the mighty Giant Haystacks could not wear the number 9 shirt – metaphorically or otherwise – and so a complicated shuffle had to occur. Adam “I’m not playing anywhere other than prop” Tunesi stood by the front row and it was decided to drop Matt Cooke to the back row, move Mark Finlason (who had come on as sub earlier) from flank to 8, move Paul Smith from 8 to wing and move James Finlason from wing to his more usual scrum half position. Such can be the tribulations of being an all rounder as you can get sacrificed on the altar.

However, James took his chance and revitalised the Hove pack and some good work ensued. Pushing Folkestone off the ball more or less at will with the crazed shouting of James roaring them to further effort and the hands in quickly to get good ball out was fracturing the Folkestone defence and in the 78th minute breaking from behind the pack, James completed his hat trick and popped the ball under the posts for Dan to scoop a fairly simple 2 points. At 33-18 Hove had won the game, but the proceedings weren’t quite over yet. Ryan Morlen collected the ball from the Folkestone kick off and raced away for a good try in the corner – from which Dan missed the conversion. And so the final whistle went with Statto having applied the addend of 5 to the augund of 33 to make a sum of 38 for Hove to the visitor’s 17 and a well deserved victory.

Some concern amongst the defence for slipping two tries – possibly the Kevin Keegan influence is being felt at Hove – “don’t worry about defending just score more that the opposition”? I’m not certain that is a coaching tactic – but its something for them to think about.A week off next week whilst your correspondent wastes his money going to watch England surrender against Ireland – what SORT of a game was that against Scotland? They should all be ashamed of themselves and if Ashton had any decency he’d apologise to Cipriani before tendering his resignation. Although, he’s probably done Cip a favour sparing him any association with that shower of S-H-ONE-T at Murrayfield on Saturday.

Then the week following there are no league games and then on the 29th we entertain Bognor and it is our Sponsor’s lunch – so if you want to be fed – then book early.