Newbury Blues v Windsor

The Blues started brightly, pressurising the Windsor line early but were turned over too often in great positions, allowing Windsor to clear their lines. In truth, the first half was quite a turgid affair, with many passes either knocked on or dropped and tackles missed, and one yellow card apiece. The bright spots were two well-taken Windsor tries bookended by two penalties from their metronomic kicker. 20-0 down, this spurred Newbury on for the rest of the first half, finishing the stronger team with Windsor happier to hear the half time whistle.

What a difference in the 2nd half! Newbury started where they left off, pressurising the Windsor line and finally got their reward when a pinpoint Dan Thorne cross kick was plucked out of the air by Tommy Martin, who touched down to put Newbury on the board. This was followed by a second Martin try after Josh Love had chased down another long cross kick from Thorne. Unfortunately the conversion was missed, leaving the score at 12-20 and meaning Newbury would require more than a converted try in the last quarter of the match. Although Windsor were visibly tiring by this point, the task became harder when Tom Erskine was harshly sent to the sin bin with 15 minutes left, and indeed with no further score the match ended 20-12.

Windsor celebrated the final whistle like a cup final win, showing how much the match meant to them. The Blues will be rightly disappointed, but should end buoyed by a much improved second half performance. Next week to high flying Witney, come on you Blues!

Report courtesy of Paul Archer