Sat. 23rd March. Dorset& Wilts Div 2 North Westbury 19 Frome 2nds 8
Westbury welcomed the unbeaten league leaders, Frome 2nds, to Knott Field. The home side knew that to remain in 2nd place, only a win would do.
As this was the last home fixture this season, Westbury’s players decided to wear their change strip of blue and white, as a gesture to their supporters. The strip was sponsored by the senior members of the club.
For the first 10 minutes, most of the play was in the visitors’ half until they managed to break out to take the match back at Westbury. During this breakout, Westbury were penalised for handling the ball in the ruck. Frome took the penalty to put themselves in the lead 0 – 3. The rest of the half saw the match seesaw from end to end and in fact Frome would count themselves unlucky not to be awarded a try when they crossed the try line, but for the referee to deem that the ball was held up. From the resulting scrum Westbury were able to relieve the pressure.
With less than 5 minutes to go, Westbury were awarded a penalty when the ball carrier was high tackled. Up stepped Captain Aaron Vaughan to slot the ball between the posts 3 – 3. A couple of minutes later Frome were again penalised for the same offence. Vaughan added the 3 points and Westbury took the lead 6 – 3.
This was the score at half time and it was 8 minutes into the second half when Vaughan received the ball when he was just outside the Frome 22. Seeing a gap in the defensive line, he set off and with a clever line of running, he “ghosted” his way through the defenders to score a try, which he then converted.
The match continued with both sides looking for the victory and playing hard toe to toe rugby, with no quarter asked for or given. Frome’s persistence in this half was rewarded when Westbury threw a speculative pass which was intercepted. They ran the length of the field to score the try, but missed the conversion 13 – 8 to the home side.
Westbury were able to add 2 more penalties through the boot of Aaron Vaughan.
19 – 8 at the final whistle and Vaughan had scored all of his side’s points, deservingly voted man of the match.
With Westbury’s closest rivals in the league, Marlborough 2nds, also winning and being level on points, next week’s fixture at Marlborough is a match that Westbury must win to hold on to second in the table.
Picture: Westbury Captain Aaron Vaughan on his way to scoring his try.
Picture: Sam McQueen and Jamie Dixon tackling a Frome player.
