Trowbridge defeated by impressive Towcestrians second half performance

For the first time this season, Trowbridge’s younger and much changed team from the one that won the RFU Intermediate Cup in May met their match in the second half with a Towcestrians team that, on this showing, will provide a serious challenge to unbeaten Chippenham when they meet next month.

This was their first ever match with the East Midlands club and the only change from the team which came close last week to winning at Swindon was the return of influential Adam Sullivan at No. 8.

Trowbridge played with the elements in the first half, and Towcestrians gained the majority of possession but a combination of good defence and some handling mistakes from the visitors meant that the only early scores came when Trowbridge’s Tom Weaver, deputising with the kicking duties for the absent Lloyd Davis, kicked similar 40 metre penalty goals in the 6th and the 15th minute. For the rest of the first half the forwards battered away with open side flankers and captains Barry Coombs and Liam Wilkinson prominent. A further penalty attempt from Weaver from inside his own half just fell short of the posts.

Facing the elements, Towcestrians turned down a couple of kicks at goal opting for the line out in the corner but despite gaining most of the possession at line outs, they were unable to breach the Trowbridge defence until just before half time when a long Trowbridge kick into Towcestrians territory was gathered and a series of fazes ended in centre David Williams going over in the right hand corner. The conversion was missed.

Trowbridge turned round with a 6-5 lead but the match turned in the first minute of the second half when Trowbridge could not deal with a wicked bounce from a long defence kick from Towcestrians. This resulted in a kick ahead and led to left wing Matt Bodily scoring. Full Back James Falvey converted. This was followed by a period of Trowbridge pressure with several 5 metre scrums but they were unable to turn this pressure into points and when second row Scott Williams was sin binned for retaliation, Towcestrians gained the upper hand. A drop goal attempt from Falvey was missed but it turned out to be a free ball and he kicked the penalty to increase the lead to 15-6 after 14 minutes of the half.

From this point Towcestrians ‘ confidence increased and their dominance was rewarded with further tries from Falvey, No 8 Craig Holton and replacement Ben Roe. All were converted by Falvey who kicked another penalty. Trowbridge battled valiantly but in the end it was an impressive second half performance by the visitors.

As a result of the matches Trowbridge rather surprisingly went up from 10th to 9th in the league, owing to Maidenhead’s heavy defeat 48-13 at Chippenham, which put Trowbridge ahead of the Berkshire outfit on points scored, the teams having the same points difference. Another significant result was Devizes, again suffered a heavy defeat, this time 35-5 at home to Leighton Buzzard. Witney, who visit Doric Park in the next round on 15th November, beat Grove 15-14, Reading won 28-20 at struggling Bletchley, Windsor beat Swindon 39-17, and Newbury won 21-10 at Buckingham.

Trowbridge play Keynsham at Doris Park on Saturday in the Bath Combination Cup.