Blues batter Reading to finish season on a high
Positive end to league campaign – now Newbury turn attention to cup
NEWBURY Blues signed off their league season in style with a 33-10 victory at bottom club Reading.
It was an impressive end to a largely disappointing campaign in Regional 2 South Central.
And it sets them up nicely for the end-of-season Papa John’s Cup competition.
Blues will go into the cup – against either Reading or Salisbury on April 20 – in confident mood having beaten both these sides in the past few weeks.
On Saturday, both teams struggled early on to come to terms with the referee, who was very hot on blowing quickly at the breakdown.
But it was Blues who drew first blood when Josh Winfield made good ground following a scrum.
More good work from Oli Rhoads created space for Jamie Futcher to touch down, Dan Thorne kicking the conversion to put Blues 7-0 up after 10 minutes.
And Blues struck again five minutes later.
This time a classic forwards driving maul led to Duncan Craigen touching down under the posts.
Another successful conversion by Thorne put Blues 14 points ahead and seemingly in
control of the match.
Blues continued to defend well, with player-of-the-match Ali Magee leading the way with some great tackles.
But 10 minutes before the break, Reading capitalised on
several missed tackles reduce the deficit to 14-5.
Blues hit back with Duncan Craigen and Dan Thorne both going close.
And the pressure finally paid off when Rhoads powered
to over from close range for Blues’ third try to take the score to19-5.
It was Reading who started the second half on the front foot and, after a period of sustained pressure, they touched down again to make it 19-10.
The home side continued to press, but a series of penalties and mistakes led to both sets of players becoming frustrated.
Blues, though, rallied and there were some standout moments as Harry Waye Branch and Magee made great runs out of defence and Tom Cole proved solid at full-back in his first full 80 minutes since returning from injury.
From an attacking position Blues won a penalty and a quick tap enabled Euan Lindsay to sprint through for the bonus point try.
The successful conversion by Thorne put Blues 26-10 ahead.
With the Reading defence now tiring, Blues scored a fifth try when Dan Thorne put a neat grubber kick through, gathered and touched down under the posts before adding the extra two points.
Special mention must go to Toby Thorne and Waye Branch, both of whom played in all 22 games.
To round off an excellent day for the club, Newbury Stags outgunned Crothorne 50-5 in the final game of their season.