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East Kent Mavericks 27 Maidstone Pumas 12
On the back of last weekend’s
victory over the Essex Spartans, it was a confident Maidstone Pumas team who
arrived in Canterbury for a game against local rivals, East Kent Mavericks. The
Mavericks outscored The Pumas 84 -0 last season, but realised that this was
likely to be a different Pumas side. However, The Pumas were hit on Sunday by a
couple of players pulling out of the game at the eleventh hour
The game was played in a good
spirit and in pretty dismal conditions of mist and light drizzle. The Mavericks
took control early on when the Pumas first possession stalled and a poor snap
to punter Dave Kerr, found the ball on the Pumas 25 yard line. 2 plays later, running
back, James Robson dived into the endzone. Scott Shepherd slotted home the
first of his 3 point after attempts.
Both defenses took control and
both teams offenses stalled. With possession going backwards and forwards no
particular pattern of play emerged. However, in the second quarter the Mavericks
scored twice, when running back Gary Welch ran in from 10 yards and a Simon
Mackerill pass found Tim Palmer from 26 yards.
Maidstone fought back and came
close to scoring when rookie Anthony Malyan caught a John Bowden pass for 21
yards, which led to a 3 point conversion attempt which was blocked. In a
desperate attempt to make something happen, running back James Cherry threw a
held back option pass which was wrestled from the Mavericks defenders by receiver
Chris Damski. However, The Pumas were unable to press home the advantage as the
officials called the half.
During the half time break, the
Pumas coaches rallied the troops and changed a few things around, which led to
the Pumas giving a much better account of themselves. Unfortunately, Mavericks
tight end Greg Mutyambizi, caught a second Mackerill scoring pass, this time
from 15 yards.
Pumas defense stepped up
and good play from Anthony Malyan, who intercepted a pass, good tackling from
Jeremy Reid and Steve Berry, closed down the home teams offense. Finally, the
Pumas offense burst into life, with last weeks hero, James Cherry bursting for
a 75 yard run, which was stopped 1 yard shy of the goal line. On the next play,
quarterback Bowden dived in the score. The Pumas defense forced the Mavericks
to punt, on the next series. Cherry was sent on to return the punt and after
breaking tackles, he ran 63 yards to the 3 yard line, were Bowden once again
bulled his way into the endzone.
After the game, Coaches Earl
and Lear praised the effort and the way in which the rookies and vets had
performed. Some notable performances were highlighted with Steve Berry making
10 solo tackles and last weeks player of the game Cherry again making 81
rushing and 63 punt return yards.
Maidstones schedule now shows a
return to Aylesford Rugby Club with a visit from Colchester Gladiators. Kick
off is 12:00pm and all are welcome.
The Pumas youth team pulled off
a tremendous victory by travelling to Crockenhill and beating the Kent Exiles
Youth Flag team. Several of the team travelled back to Canterbury to share the
excellent news. Well done!
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.