Trowbridge visited Windsor’s picturesque ground in the shadow of the castle after their Bath Combination Cup defeat to Chippenham last week. They made several changes from the mainly second string team fielded for the match against their Wiltshire neighbours, but are still at some distance from the team that was playing in the early season matches when they climbed to fifth place in the league. They are still in that position but they now have been hotly pursued by some clubs over the last few matches. Debuts were given to hooker Joe Hurley and Matty McFarlane and Josh Adcock Coombs came in to deputise for Zak Harvey who withdrew on the eve of the match. Scott Taffy Williams also returned to the squad for a cameo appearance as a prop to help shore up the scrum.

Windsor were beaten 17-12 at Doric Park in the autumn and have also suffered from players being unavailable. They had no fixtures below their first team on Saturday.

Trowbridge started brightly for the first few minutes but then a series of mistakes and missed tackles resulted in four Windsor tries in the first 30 minutes. This set the tone for the game. It looked bleak for the visitors when Gareth Davis was yellow carded for an isolated offside near the Trowbridge line as Windsor pressed and they gained in confidence during this period. They lost their influential Fly half Ben Grant Adamson and their experienced No 8 Chris Emmett was at the fore in their attacks on the Trowbridge line.

Trowbridge responded just before the interval when James McFarlane, would had moved to centre for Nigel Kershaw who became unavailable owing to an illness at the last minute, scored a good individual try after lock Luke Moore had broken through the Windsor defence. With Ollie Weaver’s conversion the score was 26-07 at the break.

The match changed in the second half with most of the play being in the Windsor half but the territorial advantage could not be turned into points. In fact the Windsor team were able to respond with two tries to even the scores during their occasional visits to the Trowbridge half. A converted try from Ollie Weaver came, and he converted and the Windsor players visibly tired under the pressure in this period, but immediately from the kick off following Weaver’s try Trowbridge failed to gather the ball it was stolen by the Windsor pack and resulted in one of those tries. Trowbridge continued to press as they cut out the errors that had been burdening them earlier in the match. Andrew Twinney and Gareth Davis scored tries to ensure a loser’s bonus point but another try from Windsor as time ran out.

Trowbridge edged the territorial advantage in the second half but the damage was done during the early dominance by the hosts. Windsor supporters confirmed this performance was one of their best of the season, but the absence of key injured and unavailable Trowbridge players did not help their cause. The players who bravely came into the team acquitted themselves well as they improved during the course of the match.
Trowbridge host title chasing Banbury at Doric Park on Saturday.