Newbury give Trowbridge the Blues

This was Newbury's first visit to Doric Park in a challenging match for Trowbridge as only 5 years ago the visitors were playing in the National Leagues. They opened up attacking and drew several penalties. Trowbridge were able to defend their line but after 8 minutes, Newbury second row Josh Winfield escaped the clutches of the Trowbridge defence and ran in unopposed for a try which Richard West converted. from this point Trowbridge managed to avoid giving away the penalties, and play moved into the Newbury half. this was Trowbridge' s best period of the half, with several scrums close to the Newbury line. On several occasions Devon referee Will Thomas penalised the Newbury front row and eventually he yellow carded the Newbury captain and scrum half, Dan Thorne, who took the responsibility for the continued scrum offences by his forwards under pressure from the Trowbridge pack. The pressure was eventually rewarded after 26 minutes when an excellent break from powerful centre Shai Bonnick resulted in him feeding the ball to full back Ashley Chalk who went over the whitewash and Lloyd Davis' conversion brought the scores level. The home side continued to attack and when second row Scott Williams turned up in the centre position, he did not have the space to make ground and kicked the ball ahead for speedy winger James Davies to pick up and outpace the Newbury defence to score. This time Davis was unable to convert from wide out and with the gusty wind, but the score was now 12-7 in Trowbridge's favour.

During this period both sides looked dangerous, but it was a defensive error from Trowbridge that allowed Newbury flanker Jack Walsh to pounce on the mistake to score wide out. The conversion was missed, and the scores were again level, but just before the break the visitors forced play towards the Trowbridge line and another try was awarded though the correspondent was unable to identify the scorer.This made the half time score 17-12 in Newbury' favour.

Lloyd Davis kicked a penalty to reduce the arrears early in the second half but the match turned after 4 minutes when the forwards sized each other up and Trowbridge's young flanker Tom Coombs was shown a red card for what turned out to be a punch during the Melee seen by referee Thomas.

Newbury increased their lead when full back Josh Bartlett went over for a try in the 11th minute of the half after forward pressure it looked as though they were going to pull away due to their advantage in numbers, but Trowbridge rallied. In the next quarter of an hour they were ahead after two Dan Smith tries, both converted by excellent Lloyd Davis kicks in very windy conditions. The first of these came after controlled forward pressure in the Newbury 22, whilst their backs threatened before the second of these tries and Trowbridge were winning 29-24 going into the final 10 minutes. Newbury suffered a couple of injuries, and with no recognised forward replacements available, looked to be in trouble, but their war wounded managed to keep going.

The visitors forced play near to the Trowbridge line and from a 5 metre scrum, Trowbridge No 8 Adam Sullivan was yellow carded and Trowbridge were left with 13 players. The pressure told at the next scrum when centre Aaron McDowell found his way over the line and West converted to edge Newbury into a 31-29 lead.

Trowbridge had a final chance to rescue the match. They were given a long range penalty chance but chose to kick to the corner. They won the line out but were unable to force their way over in the tense finish, infringing and Newbury found touch when the referee blew for no side.

A match that could have gone either way, Trowbridge had to be content witha losing bonus point and a bonus point for 4 tries. the other matches went with form with the possible exceptions that Swindon lost at Witney and Buckingham's victory over Grove which meant that the relegation issue may not yet have been decided.