Match 1:         Salisbury 1                 Swanage and Wareham 0

Salisbury took a while to get going, playing the first half uphill and with the sun in their eyes.  It wasn’t until the second half that Daniel Harris got over to open Salisbury’s scoring.  It’s always good to start with a win.

Match 2:         Salisbury 2                 Bradford on Avon 2

Salisbury started uphill again making heavy weather of it.  Bradford on Avon broke out of a scrum to score in the far right hand corner.  Salisbury responded strongly with aggressive mobile play and Charlie Heywood eventually pushed over the line to score for Salisbury whilst Ben Richards lay injured on the opposite side of the pitch.  Bradford on Avon however responded in kind and scored again before the end of the first half.

In the second half Salisbury pushed downhill against a strong BoA defence.  Tom McFarland eventually made it over the line to equalise for Salisbury.  The final minute of the match was played right over the opposition touch line and Salisbury could so easily have scored, but in the end the Referee blew his whistle and the struggle was over.  Better a draw than a loss; but it was so nearly a win.

Match 3:  Salisbury 0            Andover 1

For a change, Salisbury started downhill.  Andover scored first by running for space wide into the corner.  In the second half Salisbury made heavy work against the gradient and, despite a noble effort, failed to make any headway.  Salisbury have always defended well in desperate times and, again, held off a furious onslaught by the opposition to remain only one point down.

Match 4:  Salisbury 0            Wimborne 4

The All-Blacks of Wimborne have become Salisbury’s stalking black-dogs with a psychological portent similar to the French attitude to facing England in Paris, so we were not expecting an easy match, particularly after our defeat at the New Milton Festival.  Wimborne play a particularly physical game, similar to Welsh Teams; Salisbury are very strict about not Handing-Off at this age group.

Wimborne scored twice in the first half, leaving Charlie Heywood injured after a clash of heads and another indicent left Daniel Harris injured.  To their credit, showing the same skills exhibited at New Milton, Wimborne offloaded superbly, slickly even.  Crucially, there was always someone there waiting for the ball when Salisbury tackled them.

Salisbury did not go forward into the next round and most players called it a day.  As a footnote, Bradford on Avon had suffered so many injuries that they pulled out of the Plate Final leaving Trowbridge to take the Plate.