When losing 50:0 isn’t so bad
Newbury Blues endured a 50:0 loss a home to Cleve. That will have hurt – particularly, after the Blues drove home a big victory over Cleve last year – but was a great deal better than Cleve’s previous two opponents this season. Coming into the game, Cleve had comprehensively won their first two matches, scoring a total of 162 points and conceding just 17 points, with their opponents trailing by at least 68 points.
Cleve are in impressively good form. An established team, who have played together for some time, they were a winning combination of speed, accuracy, courage and commitment. So cohesive as a team, a player charging forward could reliably offload the ball left or right, certain a team-mate would be safely on hand to collect and advance the ball. They were quite an outfit to watch.
Making the strongest start, Cleve put their first points on the board in just 4 minutes, with a try by Hooker Luke Moorhead, confidently converted by Fly Half Matthew Jarvis. The next 25 minutes, saw another four tries, mostly converted. Three-quarters of the way through the first half, the score stood at 31:0 to Cleve.
But, little by little, the Blues slowed Cleve down, and they even looked like they might score in the final minutes of the first half. Going in at the break still at 31:0, the score remained unchanged for comfortably 10 minutes into the second half. Still, Cleve scored another three tries in the second half of the game and the Blues only had near-misses at scoring.
The Blues have plenty to work on – some set-pieces, such as the line-outs, lacked accuracy – but the team was missing many of its senior and most experienced team members, so it must be some consolation that they held the score to just 50.
The Newbury Blues are home again to Matson on 17th October. Be there! Come on you Blues!