Westbury entertained Oakmedians looking to carry forward the form shown in the previous week’s game and come away with a win.
Before the game began a poignant minutes silence was held in the memory of Westbury RFC’s joint founder Mark Knott, who had sadly passed away earlier in the week.
The Westbury players took to Knott Field determined to produce a performance that would have made Mark Knott proud.
The game started with a frantic pace with Westbury clearly fired up following a rousing prematch speech from flanker Lee Moore. It took only five minutes for stand in captain Mathew Inseal to open the scoring. The scrum half showed great awareness to take a quick tap penalty and ghost through to a gap to touch down; the conversion was missed to leave Westbury with a five point lead.
Westbury did not let up and continued to pressurise the away side. On nine minutes flanker Lee Moore burst through the Oaks defence and raced towards the line, with one man to beat he showed great vision to float a perfect pass to winger Rob Shaw who raced in to score. Jack Brooks converted to take the score to 12 points.
The men in green and black didn’t let up and on the 20 minute mark, Jack Brooks received the ball just inside the Oaks half, he side-stepped his opposite man and raced away to score under the posts, he then added the conversion and Westbury led 19-0.
Westbury continued to dominate for the remainder of the half and got the well deserved bonus point try when returning fly half Chris Vaughan glided through a gap in the defence to race away and touch down, Brooks converted to leave the half time score 26-0.
The second half started with Westbury keen to continue their domination. Oakmedians had a different idea and came back into the game beginning to keep hold of the ball.
Westbury began to lose a bit of discipline and the referee harshly showed the yellow card to Brooks for handling in the ruck. Two minutes later the referee decided that Lee Moore had not released the ball in the ruck and reduced the home side to 13 with another yellow card. Westbury continued to defend heroically but the lack of numbers told and Oaks crossed for a consultation try.
That was the final points of the game and Westbury had won 26-5. The 1st half was a fantastic performance, the best for many years and a fitting way to pay tribute to the man that started this fantastic club. Westbury will travel to Wimborne next week in high spirits hoping to continue this fine run of form.
