Grove 10 – 10 Marlborough
On Saturday, Marlborough travelled back into Oxfordshire to play Grove in the Tribute South West 1 East league. The weather couldn’t have been any different from when Grove visited the Common back in September, that was a glorious, sunny, warm Autumnal afternoon. Saturday was grey, dull, and blustery, the complete opposite, possibly an omen as to how the game was going to go for Marlborough.
It was good to see the return of Patrick Campbell (Patch) and Inosi Laqekoro (Knoxy) to the side as well as the youngsters Bradley Whatley and Joel Tawake.
The whistle blew and Marlborough showed some encouraging signs, so much so that they scored first with an unconverted try on ten minutes. Marlborough produced a good line out, maul and drive which saw Solomone Aniseko (Seko) score.
Then things started to go downhill quite quickly, the weather was not helping Marlborough, as they were playing into the wind in the first half. The game had very little flow or rhythm, there were many stoppages and interruptions. Then the Marlborough skip had to be lifted off the pitch with an ankle injury. Before which he had been constantly trying to organise the boys and putting himself everywhere on the pitch. The remainder of the first half followed a similar pattern and just before the end of the first half, Grove scored a penalty. Marlborough did not want the home side going into the half time with their confidence up by getting points on the board.
Half – Time: Grove 3 – Marlborough 5
The second half saw much more of the same, starting with Grove’s kick off which was dropped and knocked on. Like the week before, no one took the initiative to kill the ball, instead they seemed to prefer to wait, thinking the referee would blow the whistle for a Marlborough penalty – nope he didn’t, and advantage was played by the home side which led to persistent pressure from Grove. Luckily on the fifty-fifth minute, Inosi Laqekoro (Knoxy) went over the line to score an unconverted try, the ball rebounded off the post.
Shortly before the end of the game, Grove managed to get the softest of try’s which was then converted to draw the match.
Final score; Grove 10 – Marlborough 10
The way the game was played and managed was disappointing, the end of match debrief was a very frank assessment by the coaches, Elisi and Fe’ao Vunnipola. The players know this was not their best performance to date and they know where and what went wrong. There were improvements within the line outs which was a positive and they dominated in the scrums, but the rest of the game was weak by their own standards which they accept. It is a case that a line needs to be drawn and they need to concentrate on next week’s game when they are away to Trowbridge in a local derby. Trowbridge are currently three places above Marlborough, in fifth position within the league table. Onwards and upwards as the saying goes.
Marlborough jeweller David Dudley retires
