A game of two halves – Blues victorious!
Newbury Blues started a bit wobbly, and went in behind at the end of the first half, but came back a different, dominant team to take all the points in a 28:13 victory at home over Royal Wootton Bassett.
Sitting two places below the Newbury Blues in the league, maybe the fans expected a comfy home win. The first half wasn’t like that at all. Within 5 minutes, RWB stomped their way across the try line and converted to take 7 points. About 10 minutes later they added 3 points for a penalty. Then the Blues had a man sent to the “sin bin” for another 10 minutes.
To their credit, the Blues began to settle down and take the measure of, not for the first time, a rather larger pack than them – and to cope with the miserably greasy conditions as the drizzle came relentlessly down. Their scrum was strong and the line-outs improved. Captain Dan Thorne recovered a bit of ground with two penalties. The teams went in 6:10 in RWB’s favour at half-time.
The Blues opened the second half as they meant to go on with an almost immediate try to nudge them ahead of the visitors 11:10. In worsening conditions, they grabbed another two converted tries – including a fabulously impressive run by Wing Dan Sanders to score under the posts – and a penalty to which RWB made only 3 points for a penalty in reply. It concluded 28:13.
The Newbury Blues are away at Cleve RFC on 29th November and back home on again on 6th December to host Witney. Come on you Blues!
Photo by kind permission of Newbury Rugby Football Club
