Civil Service first home game nearly turned into a nightmare with the world cup forcing a further 7 changes Civil Service looked unsettled from the start. Within 2 minutes of the start had been forced to give away a penalty under the posts a gift 0-3. From the restart Thanet gathered the ball and steadily walked the ball up field with Civil Service struggling to find a solution with the hard work done Thanet broke away and scored a good try by Thanet 13 and converted after 14 minutes 0-10. Civil Service restarted with more purpose following up quickly and forcing Thanet to infringe penalty was converted by Caldwell playing at 15 to get points on the board 3-10. The next period of play did show Civil Service have got the potential to run riot but a series of poor handling and over complicated moves achieved little. In the 34th minute Civil Service allowed Thanet too much space and the Thanet 11 took the ball on an excursion out pacing the Civil Service backline to score out wide 3-15, things were looking ominous. Civil Service dug in and started to apply pressure, playing some better rugby retaining possession despite the official’s best attempts to change it and in the 40th minute could find no reason to disallow the try scored by Lloyd-Davies 8-15.
After what can only be described as an encouraging talk by coach Tony Chapman at half time Civil Service came out with a more purposeful approach and after 5 minutes of the restart the forwards showed they could also muscle their way to the line try scored by Forrester 13-15. Civil were playing with much more conviction but were hampered by some poor handling and wasted several chances, however the forwards took the matter in hand forced a try scored by Ebbett in the 60th minute 20-15. Come back sure, but Thanet were not done yet and as they pushed forward, gained a penalty which they took on 70th minute to bring the score to 20-18 and Civil Service were not home yet and in the ensuing 10 minutes gave away another penalty which was missed to the relief of all concerned. Civil Service did show good strength of character to get the result without being flustered but in truth should not have allowed themselves to get into that position, good 2 points to have and only 3 weeks more of the world cup to ravage team selection.
PT