Westbury started the home fixture determined to put right last week’s loss, and within three minutes were ahead when debutant centre Matt Greatley, stormed through the opposition to score his first ever try for the club, unfortunately the conversion was missed.
Bassett stunned into action, turned up the pressure and from a five metre scrum passed the ball to their inside centre who crashed over the try line to score. The conversion gave the visitors a 2 point lead.
Westbury took back the lead after some good running lines and clever handling saw the home side march up field and full back and captain, Nigel Kershaw, finishing it all off with a fine try.
Wootton Bassett were not finished yet and after another five minutes pulled in front with a well worked try and conversion. 12 – 10 to the visitors.
Westbury then started to apply pressure and were rewarded with a penalty on 27 minutes and another on the stroke of half time both of which fly half Aaron Vaughan slotted to give Westbury a slender lead of 16 -14.
For the first half hour of the second period the sides could not be separated until 30 minutes had gone, when Bassett were awarded a scrum deep in the Westbury half. The ball shot out of the back of the scrum and with the Bassett scrum half fumbling it, quick thinking Westbury 9, Matt Inseal pounced on the loose ball and ran the length of the field to score. Vaughan missed the extras. 21 – 14 to Westbury.
Vaughan then put the game out of Bassett’s reach when he slotted his third penalty with just minutes to go.
This was a particularly good result for the home side because of injuries and unavailability, several players had to be called into the team from the second XV, giving coach Chris Bush some serious decisions for next week’s selection.
Paul Couzens
