Newbury 23 Albion 28

By Frank Stormont
October 30 2006

Albion beaks the drought of scores in their second halves and claim the win away from home at Monks Lane. With Tries for Nic Sestaret and in the second half by Tom Tom, that’s Hayes and Arscott.

 

Newbury 23 Albion 28

 

Anyone travelling to Monks Lane to see Nick Defty line up against his old club would have been disappointed as for the first time this season he was not named in the 22 Newbury Squad. The match was played under bad light with a sure sign of autumn as the floodlights were turned on at halftime. The was a light breeze that seemed to swirl around the pitch.

The match was refereed by Australian Stuart Dickinson who is down to take on the France New Zealand match later this year. Stuart worked hard on the pitch to keep up with the play and produce a fair and flowing game.  Although there were a high number of penalty points kicked I did not find the game to be dominated by the referee.

Albion went into the lead with only 3 minutes on the clock after Newbury were judged to be offside 15 metres in front of the posts. Wihan Neethling doubled the score with his second penalty when Newbury did not role away at the breakdown.

15 minutes in after Albion were judged to play the ball on the ground Newbury narrowed the gap with a penalty kick from 35 metres. Just 5 minutes later Albion, with the boot of Wihan, took the lead back to 6 points with an offside penalty on the Newbury 22.

After Albion were penalised for pushing in the lineout near the halfway line Newbury reduced the deficit back to three points with a strong kick by Tim Walsh.

With the wind doing strange things to the high kicked ball Wihan had only a few metres to move to recover the ball he thought was clearing out of his own 22 to the Newbury half.

The first try of the match came after Wihan made a run for the line but was stopped 5 metres short of the line but the ball was quickly recycled for Nic Sestaret to score his 6th try of the season in the left corner. Wihan who had almost made it across the line then added the extras from the left hand touchline. 

The first half seemed to fly by and Albion went into the changing room in the lead with the score standing at 6 - 16! Newbury had had a number of opportunities to go for the Albion line but each time were resisted by the strong defence.  Albion sent out an unchanged team after the turn around to play a side that had scored over 70% of their recent points in the second halves of their matches.

The first score of the second half went to the Newbury side after a scrum that turned as it broke up leaving the Albion forwards on the wrong side of the ball. Newbury were initially stopped short of the line before the ball was recycled and fly half Tim Walsh went over to score just right of the posts.

Before Albion  had the chance to regroup Newbury fullback Mal Roberts ran from his own half breaking through to score by the posts. Albion were behind for the first time in the match and looked as though second half rugby was coming into play yet again. 

With Nigel Cane injured Tom Arscott came on the pitch to bring some fresh legs on the wing with Ed Lewsey moving to take up the scrum half role. The very next play saw a catch and drive move down the right hand side and Tom Hayes scoring as the pack went over the try line. This was the first score in the second half for a long time, except for the charge down that Keni Fisilau made against Pertemp Bees.

This was the change in fortunes that Albion needed and saw them raise their game. Spending most of the rest of the match on the attack and several times almost making it to the line, one time when Tom Hayes made a break from inside his own half with the support Tom Arscott it looked as though Tom Arscott was to score but it was not to be.... yet.

Tom Arscott did make it across the line a few minutes later after a break by Ed Barnes left Tom free to cross the line in the corner before running for the posts to dive in a jubilant manner to score on his first appearance for Albion this season.

With Newbury sitting 8 points behind they kept on going and when they were awarded a penalty in the 4th minute of injury time and presumable being told by the referee that there was no time for a lineout they kicked for goal from the left hand touch line and secured their first bonus point of the season.

Highlights of the match will be on Sky's Rugby Club on Thursday this week.

Albion now have to look forward to what will probably be their toughest match of the season so far as they take on league leaders Rotherham at 2:15 next Saturday.

 

Team: Wihan Neethling, Ed Lewsey, Regardt Van Eyk, Arran Cruickshanks, Nic Sestaret, Ed Barnes, Nigel Cane, Martin Rice, Richard Oxley, Scott Zimmerman, Colin Stewart, Ben Gulliver, Federico Genoud, Danny Thomas, Tom Hayes Replacements: Nat Saumi, Tom Arscott(used), Jon Fabian, Tim Mathias, James Owen, Brett Stroud(used), Chris Lowrie

Scorers :- Tries Nic Sestaret Tom Arscott Tom Hayes Penalties 3x Wihan Neethling Conversions 2x Wihan Neethling