TWRUFC 1st XV 55 vs Dover II 5

7th Mar 2026, KO 14:00

Dover II - Home

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Match Report

The Boys go 5 points Clear at Top of the Table !!!!

Well ladies and gents here it goes, the one that you’ve all been waiting for. Ash vs Dover, 1st vs 2nd, farmers vs sharks, heroes vs villains. Call it whatever you want. This is a BIG game.

The Green and Whites were feeling confident, after finding a great run of form in 2026. Undefeated, and coming into this fixture off the back of a big 0-52 away win over Ashford, there was certainly some great vibes around this match. The player pool this week was a big head scratcher for the coaches, with over 30 players making themselves available for the clash. However, a big squad of 20 fine Ash warriors took to the field, ready to prove exactly why we’re top of the league and exactly why we deserve to stay there. The front row consisting of 3 giant workhorses 1. Steve Crump, 2. Sam Gunter, 3. Kieran Munn-Hollands, welcome back to your home in the front 3 K! The run at 10 was generational which has certainly gone down in history and hopefully will stay as history going forward. Welcome to your position for the rest of the season. Second-row giants Jimmy O and Matt Radbourne securing that intimidating factor, and the back row trio bringing Dec Quincey back into the mix and 6 and the usual Guy Williamson at 7 and Fin Parfitt at 8. Simon Race managed to trade the ambulance for the rugby boots for a second week in a row staying in at 9 with his normal number 10 pairing of Brad Blaxland. Sexiest man in Kent, George Kelsey, makes himself available yet again to join the ever solid Bok in the centres. Our all solid back three of Conor McGrath, Brad Nash and Alex Manning rounded off the starting line up. A fully packed bench was also visible Dylan Richards and Ben Brabs providing excellent front row cover, Harry Hopkins to add a little spice to the mix and a pairing of old with Tommy Whittaker and Ben Gunter to cover the whole back field.

With an unintentional pressure on the game from the early hours it was very much emphasised to just have some fun today and that was evident in the warm up. Jokes were cracked all over the place and vibes were good, a solid strong quick warm up done and we were already one mental point up against our opposition. Shirts on and Game time. The boys were ready, one big squeeze and they were ready for kick off. And maybe not the perfect start!!!

The first 10 minutes of this fixture were messy, no real game plan from either side, aimless runs, pointless offloads, scrappy tackles, backwards kicks (Alex Manning!!), and hard hit rucks (something that would persist) were littered throughout the pitch. Dover found some composure earlier than the home side however, and managed to co-ordinate a well worked first try running it in around the corner. A wake up call for the boys in Green and White. Normally the coaches would come and give a scream and shout under the posts but not this time.

Player responsibility shone through and everything was already said; a mentality shift needed to happen and all of a sudden as the scoreboard went to 0-5 in favour of the sharks, something switched in those 15 Ash men. Hits became harder and stronger and everything we did was with more purpose, leading to a free kick middle of the park. An accidental perfectly placed kick from fly half Brad Blaxland landed amazingly in front of the opposition 15, under pressure at the back he ended up fumbling the catch forward resulting in a scrum down for the boys. Some quick tactical scanning and well hidden hand gestures meant that Brad was able to identify space down the blind side. With one almighty push at scrum time, Simon got it out to the hands of Brad who drew a defender then gave it to a charging Conor McGrath breaking the tackle to crash over the line. Back to all square 5-5. The boys quickly followed this up with a lovely running line from George Kelsey, provided by a great base from the forwards, and a sweet boot from our local turk suddenly saw us on top of the score line.

At this point the story of the game begun to get quite spicy off the ball, where some of the Dover boys started to show that their true colours are red rather than their masked mix of blue. The harsh physicality of both sides was what shone through and created certainly created a spark at a lot of breakdowns. It’s safe to say at certain points throughput the game tempers flared from both sides, but whenever this happened the Ash boys had a whole team to back them up and calm down the situation. The true spirit of brother hood and having each others back. After a penalty kick to touch was missed by Dover, and kicked dead, the ball was brought back to the penalty spot for scrum time. So scrum time again and chance for us to do what we do best. And of course, we did get that ball wide and solid and let our whippersnappers do the hard yards, and George Kelsey crashed over the line. Just a couple minutes on from the restart there was a chance for posts bang in front of the posts just outside the 10 meter and Brad must’ve picked up the right boots that morning as he slotted a lovely 3 to take us into the last play of the half.

Now this is where one of the hilarious moments of the game comes form. Gunter somehow wins possession back and some smart thinking from VC Kieran Munn-Hollands says to get it out and just end the half on the up. It’s just unfortunate that the call resonated with number 8 Fin Parfitt, and when the ball landed its way into his hands the attempt can only be described as poor, disappointing, embarrassing. The perfect evidence of why I should just stay in my lane. To back up just how bad it turned out, number 15 Alex (who had done that horrible backwards kick earlier) suddenly felt fearless of the dick of the day award. Bok backed this up by also saying to Alex that I was locked in for that award now. However, there is an argument that this was all intentional as some scrappy play form this absolute slice of a touch attempt actually led to some free-flowing rugby. Dover continued with some gameplay, desperate to gain some points before half time. Hooker Sam Gunter fantastically intercepted a Dover pass and dashed through towards the try line. However, he ran out of steam at the 22 metre line, where he had support from Dec Quincey. Offloading the ball to Dec, Dec found the backtracking number 15 from Dover tackling him. Slick hands from Dec to Jimmy O meant he ended up running it in under the posts. The coaches didn’t want us to fear failure and I think I pushed the limits of that this week. A lovely conversion slot from Brad took the half time score to Ash 36-5 Dover.

A couple of half time changes struck a difference, with Jimmy departing under fears of a fractured arm. He was replaced by Bok back into the pack and Ben Gunter returning from injury slotting back into the centres, changing the dynamic of the gameplan all of a sudden. The ethos of this second half was simple keep them out and score more and that is the mentality the boys took to it.

Another hard battled 10 minutes faced the boys at the start of the half, with some really promising passages of play. One of which resulting in the Dover winger breaking down the touchline and our very own hard hitting merchant Simon Race, deciding to aim a shoulder quite close to the neckline. Simon knew what he had done and accepted the fate and as such Guy Williamson was shown the yellow card apparently just for the bants. A very concerned look made the referee realise he had made one hell of a mistake, thinking Guy was indeed Simon which I’m still not 100% sure how he can do. I mean Simon isn’t 12 foot tall, he also runs like a normal person and he has some youthful non grey hair left as well. So down to 14 men and no 9. Conor was sacrificed to let Harry Hopkins come on and sit at scrum half, and his presence of flare and general Hopkins attitude gave us a lot of the edge from that moment. And even with the disadvantage of numbers that Ash mentality and heart persisted and the boys ran in 2 beautifully worked tries one from Brad Nash and the second from Guy Williamson, disappointingly without the swan dive :( . During this time, Dover seemed to turn up the heat by throwing themselves into almost every single ruck and their main target seemed to be the South African Mountain that is BOK. Safe to say a couple of friendly chuckles and hard hits from the Eben Etzebeth look alike put any question that he might be breakable to rest.

Our last 5 minutes saw Brad Nash greedily snatch one last try making for his 75th Hat-trick of the season and surely killing the game off for good. But the Ash intensity right until the dying embers of the game still pushed through possibly in the slightly illegal way, where we saw ourselves go down to 13 men!!! The first card was handed to captain Matt Radbourne, who did I’m not even sure what and about 1 minute later Guy was shown his second (but first serious) yellow card of the game. Well lads if you’re gonna go out, go out in style I guess. But these dying embers didn’t matter in the overall of the game as the boys in Green and White had managed to rack up an impressive 55 points ended our game 50 points up on our opponents.

FT: Ash 55-5 Dover

What a performance, that’s literally all I can say. It was truly special a day where all 20 players gave absolutely everything for that badge and played the game plan we’ve worked so hard on perfecting to a tee. I can’t think of a more deserved result for this group of players as I can confirm I think it may have been the first game de-brief this season when the first thing that came out of the coaches mouths were positive, so we must’ve done something right. Celebrations were well earned an I was told that the singing form the forwards changing room was quite clear for the people in the clubhouse as it should be.

A big thankyou for out supporters, for lining the sidelines every week. Thank you to the non players for getting the match day jobs done and thankyou to Dover for coming and providing a tough physical slog of a game.

So another home win thankfully overlooked the England result, and I can confirm that Ash are still undefeated in 2026, and the Rec remains a fortress with no visiting side leaving with points this year. A week off now follows for Super Saturday, and then we’re into a busy schedule of games. This starts with Thanet away on 21st March, followed up by 5 more consecutive gamedays.

But for now time to rest and recharge. Wind rain or shine the Green Machine keeps rolling.

MOTM: Kieran Munn-Hollands (solid as an one and proving himself as mr ol’ reliable)

DOTD: Fin Parfitt (undeserved, that was Jonny Wilkinson class mate)

Try Scorers: Conor McGrath, Brad-Lee Nash (3), George Kelsey (2), James Osborn, Guy Williamson

Conversions: Brad Blaxland (6)

Penalties: Brad Blaxland (1)