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Maidstone Pumas 7 Watford
Cheetahs 42
On what turned out to be a
pretty miserable day weather and game wise, Maidstone Pumas travelled to leafy
Watford, for the first of their two out of their conference games.
Prior to the game, despite the
efforts of the Pumas management, only 16 players made themselves available for
the game. The Pumas are injury ridden at the moment, with the latest casualty
being wide receiver Richard Dowling, who had broken a bone in his left hand.
With Pumas players playing both
offense and defense, a sudden burst of heavy rain, dampened proceedings just
before kick off. The rain would then continue for much of the game. Both teams
started brightly with defense on top. However, Watford struck first when
veteran Canadian Frank Mayo ran back a decent Anthony Malyan punt for the
opening score. Typically in the run back, tight end Billy Robertson was injured
and had to sit out the remainder of the game. Robertson ended up in Hospital on
Sunday evening, but he left with reasonable news and should be fit to finish
the season.
Peter Crawley stretched
Watford’s lead, but then the Pumas offense clicked with quarterback John Bowden
hitting Anthony Malyan on a 40 yard fourth down gamble from Coach Ted Smith.
This was followed by some strong running from Rhys Herring and Steve Berry,
which set up a 12 yard strike from Bowden to Malyan. Malyan stepped up and
kicked the point after.
As the rain increased Watford
took advantage of Pumas mistakes, with so many players out of position this was
inevitable. With just under two minutes of the half remaining and Watford up 36
– 7, thunder and lightening stopped the game. Both teams and supporters
retreated to the clubhouse to shelter from high winds and torrential rain.
After the delay, both teams emerged to a water logged pitch that made playing
difficult. Watford scored once more before the game petered out with lots of
mistakes.
Coach Smith added “What a
miserable day, both weather wise and with a severe lack of players. Congratulations
to Watford who continued to play hard and we wish them well for the remainder
of the season. Coach Lear and I would like to thank the team, for sticking with
it. With many people hardly able to take a breather. I also thought the
officials handled the weather conditions really well and managed to ensure
everyone was safe when the weather took a turn for the worse. However, we have
a game next week, a visit to Essex to play the Spartans, who we beat in the
first game of the season. It is going to be tough with us losing three players
from today’s group. However, we should be a little stronger with a number of
players returning from injury and enforced breaks”.
In additional news, General
Manager Stuart Crowley added, “We have been in discussions with a series of
local Maidstone businesses, in an effort to generate sponsorship for the club.
One or two of the leads are looking quite interesting and we should be able to
go public within the next two to three weeks. These links are partly due to the
coverage received in the Maidstone edition of the Kent Messenger”.
We believe that, despite a
couple of set backs on the field in the last couple of weeks, off the field we
are starting to create an organisation to deliver real benefits”.
Maidstone Pumas will be attending
the Kent County Council sponsored teacher alternative training day on Wednesday
9th July. 13 local teachers representing 10 schools will be taught
flag football, the non contact version of the sport. The club are building upon
these successes and are still looking for players (youth and senior) and
coaches to assist with the 2008 campaign and beyond.