Marlborough Rugby – Late loss against Chew Valley on a wet, grey and chilly afternoon on The Common

Marlborough 19-22 Chew Valley

The weather, which hitherto had been crisp and clear and frosty, turned sour this Saturday. The high wind and persistent rain made for miserable conditions on The Common, and this led to what was, for most of us, a pretty unpleasant afternoon of rugby! By the final whistle spectators couldn’t tell who was playing for which team – their strip was all brown….

Marlborough started reasonably well and applied pressure across pitch.  After just two minutes, sharp eyes and a sure pair of hands saw our fly-half, George Shakespeare, grab a lovely interception!  Sprinting 75 metres to score and then converting his own try, this was a great start from the young bard!

But then we had to defend for the next 38 minutes.  We were on the back foot and were, frankly, not very good at it.  When we did get possession, we squandered it with poor kicking, no kick chase, and some terrible on-field decision-making.  Our lack of cohesion and collective effort let us down.  Chew Valley scored two converted tries in the first half and we trailed at the break…

Half-time – Marlborough 7-14 Chew Valley

In an unusual turn of events, there was an extended half-time break as the referee had been hit on the side of the head by a clearance kick, failed his head injury assessment, and had to go off with concussion!  One of the referee’s assessors present stepped-up and replaced him.

As a spectacle of rugby, most spectators would agree that the first fifteen minutes of the second half was poor – by both teams.  After a fashion, Marlborough did show some fight and scored following a very strong run from centre, Kevini Tuaimei’api, the ball then finding its way to young winger Max Khawaja to score in the corner.  His first for the Club!  Sadly, this try went unconverted.

The next score was also Marlborough’s, following a rare period of decent build-up play from the forwards, which allowed loose-head prop, Nichaiah Boynton, to crash over and score.  His try expertly converted by Shakespeare.

At this point in what had been a dull contest, Marlborough was the dominant team.  As they say – “the game was ours to win”.  However, we experienced that ‘perfect storm’ of ineffective and / or misjudged out-of-hand kicking, combined with rash decision-making, topped off with slack discipline…  To put it bluntly, we let Chew back in and their converted score put us level with just a few minutes to go.  Worse – we then gifted them a penalty in front of our own posts and their kicker sealed a narrow victory for them and we were left to rue what might have been…

Final Score – Marlborough 16 – St Austell 16

Overall, whilst the weather didn’t exactly help, this was a poor display of less-than-satisfactory rugby (by both teams) and another ‘L’ on the board for our 1st XV.  On a positive note, we took one point (a losing bonus) from the game and that should not be sniffed at.  We will work now to identify and – most importantly – learn the lessons from this game.