Wimbledon lose 52-36 to Canterbury as opponents gain revenge for September reverse

Wimbledon had won narrowly at Canterbury in September, but the visitors were intent on not repeating that result in Saturday’s return fixture.

Wimbledon started well, scoring tries through scrum-half Tim Ridler in the fifth and 10th minutes, the first a lineout and driving maul try and the second after an attack down the right wing.

Both were converted by Edward Morgan with difficult kicks.

After this the visitors shook off the effects of their coach journey and possession from a maul was spread wide to hand a try to full-back William Waddington, this was soon followed up by a missed tackle and a gap opened for flanker Eoin O’Donoghue to score under the posts, a breathless start with four tries in 16 minutes.

Canterbury got their third from Waddington to take the lead 24-14.  The strong wind making conversions difficult for both sides.

What impressed from the start was the manner in which Canterbury varied their line of attack and the way they chased the kicks from outside half Frank Reynolds to put pressure on the home team.

This pressure paid off as Wimbledon struggled to get out of their own half for long periods. But winger Brad Pinkham and Edward Morgan were able to find gaps and score tries themselves to give a half time score and the try bonus point as they led 26-24.

After just five minutes Canterbury were able to take the lead following a driving maul and Frank Reynolds made his conversion with the aid of the post.

Earlier one of Morgan’s attempts had gone the other way, fortunately these narrow margins had no effect on the final outcome, but the players could not know this at the time.

With the Dons trailing 29-26 came the try of the match, a 95-metre effort diagonally from near one goal line to the other across the pitch, unfortunately for the home team it was by wing Garry Jones after passing through many pairs of Canterbury hands, and followed by a good conversion from Reynolds.

This was followed up four minutes later by replacement Ben Cooper and finally by Alfie Orris on 68 minutes.

Before then Tomasz Pozniak on the right wing for Wimbledon had crossed over wide out after a sustained attack and new recruit, hooker Devlin Hope had the last word scoring in the 76th minute, both tries unconverted.

The final judgement for this match was that it was pulsating and with eight tries scored by the visitors and six by the home team nobody could complain of not being entertained, but the end result was that Wimbledon gained only a try bonus point for all their efforts in the National 2 East fixture.

Wimbledon are at Guernsey on Saturday.