Marlborough Rugby: Triumph in local derby in first match at new level

Swindon 12 – 24 Marlborough

 

Marlborough enjoyed their first ever game in South West 1 East (Level 6) with an encouraging win over local rivals Swindon.

The game started well for Marlborough who quickly exerted some dominance in the scrum and some powerful work from Ash Horner, Lotu Ngungutau and Lemeki Moala in the front row.

 

 

The pressure meant that Marlborough could set up some good attacking ball for their exciting back line.  A quarter of an hour into the game a forward pass denied them what looked like a try scoring move.  From the resulting scrum, the Swindon side cleared under pressure, but only to the 22. The line out gave Marlborough good attacking ball, the ball was spread wide to the left and full back Garth Bari made a good break before off loading to Pio Tuwai, who went in near the posts. 

 

Unfortunately the conversion was missed.  Shortly after the restart the ball was worked back to Tuwai, who chipped over the on rushing defence and chased his own kick, the ball bounced perfectly and he ran in to score his second try; Will Grant got the conversion for a 12-0 lead.

 

A penalty soon after the restart meant Tom West put Marlborough within 5 metres of the Swindon line.  A good line out move meant that Inosi Laqekoro was able to dive over and with Grant’s conversion, the score was now 17-0.

Around the half hour mark, the momentum changed as the home side got themselves back into the game.  Tuwai was sin binned for not retreating the full 10 metres at a penalty. 

 

Swindon exploited the advantage and started to spread the ball wide.  Swindon went over in the right corner for an unconverted try and just before half time scored again under the posts.  This put them right back in the game at 17-12 which was to be the half time score.

The second half saw Swindon come far more into the game and the advantage of the wind meant that Marlborough were finding it difficult to relieve the pressure. 

 

Swindon had an attacking line out on Marlborough’s 22 but the ball was overthrown and the dynamic James Farrell gathered the loose ball and made a good break.  The ball was released to Ben Fulton, who made good ground before linking to Tuwai and out to wing Grant.  His kick over was chased by Jamie Pittams who looked to be in to score but desperate defence by Swindon stopped the move by conceding a penalty.  The penalty was kicked to touch and another attacking line out resulted in a good move and Lemeki Moala was over in the corner; Grant converted for a 24-12.

Marlborough can feel that they left at least a couple of tries not scored after some handling errors when it looked like a score was about to come, but it was really positive to get a first win and now the team look forward to next week and the visit of Trowbridge to The Common.