Westbury RFC 12-33 Calne – Dorset & Wilts 2 North, Saturday 4th March

Westbury welcomed Calne to Knott Field expecting a tough encounter, which it certainly proved to be.

The match was a game of two halves with Westbury facing heavy rain and wind in the first half.

Calne had possibly the biggest pack of forwards that Westbury have had to face this season and they used them to good effect, powering everything through their forwards.

Calne soon put Westbury under pressure and within 5 minutes scored their first try from a scrum deep in the home side’s 22 metre area.  The ball was shipped out to the backs for them to score a converted try. After another 5 minutes, following a rolling maul, Calne were able to add another try.

20 minutes into the half Westbury managed to put together a good passage of play resulting in a penalty.  Man of the match, flanker Ryan Knight, took a quick tap and was able to cross the try line, giving stand-off Aaron Vaughan, an easy kick for the extra 2 points, 12 – 7 to the visitors.

Calne’s third try came shortly after that, when they stole the ball from a Westbury lineout and with the hint of a knock on, which the referee missed, broke through to score and convert the try.

Calne added 2 more converted tries due mainly to the efforts of their big forwards dominating play.  At the half time whistle Calne were 33 – 7 up and it was looking like it was going to be a cricket score.

However, Westbury were not going to lie down and with Vaughan’s excellent positional kicking they were able to move Calne’s big forwards around the park and were rewarded with a try of their own, scored again by Ryan Knight after he broke through the defence from the back of a ruck.

Unfortunately the conversion attempt was just wide of the posts.

Westbury were unlucky on a couple of occasions, one was when hooker Chris Pearce, crossed the line but was deemed to be held up and also when captain, Nigel Kershaw, broke out from his own half, and if it hadn’t been for a great covering tackle from Calne’s defender 5 metres out, looked certain to score but this was not to be.

To be fair to Westbury, they managed the second half much better than the first and were able to contain the Calne attack, stopping them from adding to their first half tally. At times, during the game, the young Westbury side showed flashes of good skills and will, in the time, mature into a much better side, as long as they work together at training and in match situations.