Salisbury 27 : 0 Wootton Basset

Salisbury U13’s started their Wiltshire cup campaign against Wootton Basset. Having been awarded the toss Salisbury played up hill for the first half. It took 10 minutes for both teams to settle down. But the Salisbury pack produced good consistent ball for the backs that in turn used it well with Felix Martin gaining good ground driving the ball up the centre of the field.

Salisbury 27 : 0 Wootton Basset

Salisbury U13’s started their Wiltshire cup campaign against Wootton Basset. Having been awarded the toss Salisbury played up hill for the first half. It took 10 minutes for both teams to settle down. But the Salisbury pack produced good consistent ball for the backs that in turn used it well with Felix Martin gaining good ground driving the ball up the centre of the field.

This was then utilised by the lively looking back line to enable the speed star Tom Lewis to score two tries. One converted by Edward Crossley and the other one unluckily hitting the post from wide out. Only some late ditch defending by Edward helped out by Felix kept the Salisbury line intact. This was surpassed just before the interval when Jack Busby chased down the Bassett right winger and was rather unlucky to be yellow carded after grabbing hold of the wingers shirt. This meant that some swift reorganisation was required to the pack with James Hill moving up to second row and playing without a number eight.

Half time was reached with the score at 12-0 with Salisbury having played the uphill half.

The second half started with Salisbury still with fourteen men but this did not affect their performance as they still bossed the scrum only the referee stopped Bassett being pushed off their own ball at nearly every scrum. Jack Busby returned to the fray only for the coaches to withdraw him to prevent him getting the wrong side of the referee again. He was replaced by Ollie Eastham with Stephen Bush moving to the back row. Prop Adrian Scott was also withdrawn having given his opposite number a hard time at scrum time although his replacement Harry Jones proved to be no soft touch either.

The pack continued to secure good ball with Toby Twentyman in particular making a real nuisance of himself in the dark arts mastered by Richie McCaw. The third member of the back row Joe Biggins also put in some big tackles.  From a backs move worked on in the warm Harry Pizzey took an inside pass from James Bagguley and ran from just inside his own half in a mazy  jinky run that only he can do, finally wrong footing the fullback to score in the corner.

He added a second from good field position created by the pack and when the backs expertly spun the ball wide  Edward created the extra man allowing Harry to score in the corner.

A break from Ollie Eastham finally resulted in a try after he just managed to ground the ball when it looked easier to score. Toby Brown came on for Robert Crossley who once again must have been near the top of the tackle count and Matthew Stockton replaced Serge Griffiths who really is becoming a man mountain in every sense of the word.

The last quarter proved to be the poorest of the game with both teams after several substitutions seemed to lose their cohesion and the platform that the pack had previously established was somewhat lacking particularly as they began to fall foul of the referees whistle.

With Salisbury scoring 5 tries the most pleasing thing was the 0 on Bassetts side of the scoreboard. This was reflected by the improved tackling but in general players are still going too high.

There is certainly a lot to build on but the way the last quarter was played needs to be improved on if we are to beat better equipped opposition. 

Match Photos