Wimborne 21 – 51 Marlborough
Marlborough continued their good start to the season with an impressive performance away to Wimborne. The visitors showed no effects from the long travel to the South coast and started the game well. They were soon on the attack and winning some good ruck ball, a powerful run by Avenai Cakaunitavuki set up another ruck near the Wimborne line, the ball was quickly moved wide by prop Lemeki Moala for Joe Visei to go over in the left hand corner; the conversion was missed.
The next try took 20 minutes to come, but again came from winning good ruck ball and eventually Ashley Horner scored his first try for the Club. The tries then started to come and the next was the result of a good initial break by Mitieli Vulikijapani. The possession was moved quickly by scrum half Jake Williams and the team won a number of phases before Joe Visei was able to pick up, go through the ruck and in under the posts. Five minutes later and the bonus point try came from a 5 metre scrum Inosi Laqekoro picked up and went over in the corner. A Garth Bari conversion and the score had moved onto 22-0. The last try of the half came near half time when outside half Tom West put a clever kick into space for Mitiele Vulikijapani to run onto, he waited for the bounce, collected the ball and went over, West converted for a half time score of 29-0.
The second half saw the introduction of Amori Nailago; his kick off was mishandled by Wimborne and from the line out, the ball was moved wide by the visiting backs and then back across the field again. Second row – Jamie Pittams and Patch Campbell were wide on the right from the original line out and it was Campbell who was to put it over the line in the corner after some impressive passing by the whole team. At this point the game turned slightly and decisions went against Marlborough, Epeli Kotobalavu was sin binned after reacting to an elbow in the face and soon after Lemeki Moala also saw a yellow for collapsing a maul. Wimborne took advantage of the extra numbers and scored a couple of converted tries. Once the numbers were restored, Marlborough were able to pull away again. A good break by Nailago and then another by Visei saw Marlborough move quickly up the field. The ball was passed wide and a superb off load by Pio Tuwai put Inosi Laqekoro in the corner for his second try.
The next try came when Wimborne tried to throw a long pass that was well read by centre Ben Fulton, he intercepted, made good ground before off loading to Visei who fed Cakaunitavuk, who moved the ball to Vulikijapani who ran it into the corner, Bari converted.
To their credit Wimborne replied again and scored a third converted try. However, it was Marlborough who finished the scoring when a good pick up by Visei at the back of a scrum on the half way line fed Williams who moved the ball out to Tuwai, he made a powerful break, beating a number of defenders before off loading to Todd Johnson who capped a fine performance with his first try of the season.
An impressive performance by Marlborough, making it 3 wins from 3. The side can now look forward to a very tough test this Saturday when for the first time ever Banbury shall be coming to The Common and who have also won their first 3 games of the season – kick off at 3.00 pm.
