After the three week Christmas break, Maidstone roared back into action with this 36-5 defeat of local rivals Sevenoaks.

In contrast, the visitors looked a shadow of the side that pushed Maidstone to the limit in the encounter at Sevenoaks, earlier in the season.

One explanation for this reversal could have been player availability. Maidstone had an almost full complement to choose from, after having to mix-and-match for the immediate period before the break.

A second reason was the underfoot conditions, which militated against sparkling three-quarter play, and encouraged attack through the pack, playing to the home side’s strength. A third was the strong defence, tweaked and sharpened after the poor start at Dover.

Bur perhaps most important was the deciding contribution of the front row, which, once again, claimed the man-of-the-match award. This time Josh Pankhurst got the nod for his try deep in the last quarter, but his all-round contribution in the game was the foundation of the award.

With Ben Massey and Lewis Stimpson restored to the pack and Rory Beech fully recovered from his muscle problems and fit to start at fly half, Maidstone’s selection had a solid ring about it. And, with a light drizzle keeping the already wet pitch watered, the prospect was for a battle between the packs.

On this score, the game didn’t disappoint. What was surprising was the beneficence of the Sevenoaks fly half, Phoenix. Kicking the ball dead from the kick off delivered the first advantage to the home side, which was turned into a try after three minutes, as the pack marched the ball down to the Sevenoaks line, with Ben Williams getting the touch down and Euan Caborn slotting the conversion.

An opportunity to reduce the deficit, just before the end of the quarter, from the Maidstone 22, was missed by Phoenix and Maidstone took full advantage just before the half hour, when Craig Webb finished off a move in the left corner. With Caborn nursing a hamstring tweak, Ross Cooke took over the kicking duties, but his first attempt, from the touchline, fell short.

But Sevenoaks were not without wit, and a grubber restart caught the home side napping, allowing the visitors to begin asking some attacking questions of their own. With Caborn departing the action, replacement, Sam Pearson, got a chance to show strong defence from his wing position, making two positive clearances from his own 22, with long relieving kicks.

The final part of the half was played out in the middle of the pitch with the conditions prompting too many mistakes to allow either side to dominate proceedings, with the half time score resting at 12-0 to Maidstone.

Sevenoaks started the second half with a raised tempo and generated a penalty on the Maidstone 22 with just a few minutes on the clock. But Phoenix saw his kick drift wide from in front of the posts and, once again, let Maidstone off the hook.

After a messy period pf play, which saw penalties awarded against both sides in quick succession, Maidstone went back to basics. A scrum on the right in the Sevenoaks 22 provided the platform for a series of attempts on the line with Ben Knight ultimately getting the touchdown. With Cooke adding the extras, Maidstone extended their lead to nineteen points, just before the quarter-hour.

With Maidstone’s pack showing increasing dominance, the visitor’s opportunities had to be on the counter. One break down the left almost came off, but the two-on-one pass lacked sufficient accuracy and winger Owen spilled the chance.

The nail in Sevenoaks’ coffin was Maidstone’s bonus-point try, shortly thereafter. A long kick from the base of the scrum by Morosan gave Maidstone a strong attacking position in the visitor’s 22 and winning the subsequent line out gave the attacking base for Stimpson to run in unopposed, under the posts, for a simple Cooke conversion and a 26-0 lead.

But Sevenoaks were next to score, on the half hour. A seemingly harsh yellow card for replacement, Jack O’Connell, gave the visitors a numerical advantage and a penalty in the Maidstone 22. The punt to touch and the ball from the subsequent line out, allowed the cross kick to stretch the Maidstone defence to give left wing, Short, the opportunity to cross in the corner.

But this was the last show of defiance by the visitors, as Maidstone added a brace of tries in the closing minutes of the game. The first came from a well worked short line out, which saw Josh Pankhurst and Adam Knight take advantage of some slack Sevenoaks marking, which released the former to run in from the 22.

Another yellow card, this time for a high tackle by Matt Moore, reduced the Maidstone contingent to thirteen, but with the restoration of Jack O’Connell and the clock showing seven minutes of added time, another piece of opportunist play, this time by Josh Pankhurst, generated the final score of the game. With the ball loose at the back of a Sevenoaks lineout, on the Maidstone 30 metre line, Pankhurst hacked the ball down field and had sufficient speed to outpace the cover, along with control, to guide the ball over the line.

The final 36-5 scoreline fully reflected Maidstone’s dominance in this game and should provide a confidence boost for some challenging encounters to come in the next few weeks.

Maidstone Ben Williams; Josh Pankhurst; Nathan Simpson: Adam Knight; Ben Massey: Ben Knight: Lewis Stimpson; Matt Iles: Lucian Morosan; Rory Beech: Alex Clarke; Craig Webb; Ross Cooke; Matt Moore: Euan Caborn

Replacements: Jack O’Connell; Charlie Williams; Sam Pearson

Pictures supplied by Bob Hayton