Sat 20 Feb 2010
Wallingford 19 - 23 Marlow 20th February 2010
Against a Marlow side who played to a limited but effective game plan Wallingford slipped to a 23-19 defeat at the Hithercroft on Saturday. The home side found great difficulty dealing with the visitors well drilled forwards who employed the rolling maul tactic to great effect at crucial periods of the game. The game was played in heavy conditions under foot, but on a bright and dry afternoon it was the home side who came out of the blocks the quickest. The Wallingford scrum was dominant early on and with some good passing out of the tackle the home side were having the better of the early exchanges in terms of possession and territory. Centre Johnny COLLETT was making a welcome return after injury and his strength in the centre caused the visitors three-quarters some early anxiety. Therefore it was no real surprise when Wallingford took the lead after 15 minutes. A break from outside half Angus BRETTELL was rewarded when his fine pass put flanker Will WOODWARD away and he raced away for an excellent try. With Wallingford missing three regular backs including kicker Jackson SAYCE, it was winger Ralph SMITH who stepped up to slot the extra points.
Wallingford continued to have the better of the game and the visitors were struggling to put any real phases of play together in the muddy conditions. Nevertheless Wallingford weren’t able to make their dominance in terms of possession pay, and their game management was lacking on times. Gradually Marlow started to get some structure into their game, and became more and more reliant on their rolling maul, which they used to good effect on the 35 minute mark. After a series of lineouts and attempts to get over the line they finally succeeded to reduce the lead to just two points. With their skipper Chris SHEASBY taking on the role once again of second referee, the visitors decided that this was their most effective tool, and took the lead a few minutes later. Wallingford were awarded a penalty just outside their twenty-two and decided to tap the ball quickly and run but then proceeded to kick the ball back to the opposition.
This resulted in the visitors being awarded a penalty from which they kicked into the home side’s twenty-two and despite the Marlow centre being at least 10 yards in front of the kicker play was allowed to continue. After the ball was recycled right the flanker scored wide out for a try that wasn’t converted. That lead was further increased on the stroke of half time when the referee deemed that the Wallingford had gone off their feet at a ruck despite the fact that the Marlow hooker was completely isolated and tackled by three Wallingford players. The resulting penalty saw Marlow go in 13-7 up at the break.
The first 15 minutes of the second half were an extremely scrappy affair, as again the visitors decided to keep the ball tight and use their heavier forwards to make ground. Wallingford on the other hand seemed to happy to kick possession away and were unable to get any pattern to their play. It was then somewhat surprising when it was the home side who scored next. After a lineout on the Marlow ten metre line it was firstly prop Kris BLASZKO who cut open the defence before feeding flanker WOODWARD who outstripped the defence for his second try. Unfortunately the straightforward conversion from SMITH was missed which would have put the home side in the lead. However after that Marlow started to dominate the breakdown and exerted pressure on the Wallingford line with a series of driving mauls. With the penalty count rising thanks to some very poor refereeing of the ruck area, Marlow finally made the pressure pay. After kicking to touch they secured clean lineout ball and their outside half stepped back inside to score a try that was converted. That lead was increased with ten minutes to go after the visitors were awarded yet another penalty twenty metres out.
The last ten minutes saw Wallingford throw everything at the visitors and were held up just short of the line. However despite two Marlow forwards lying two yards on the wrong side of the ruck as the home side tried to recycle the ball, the referee blew up and awarded the penalty to the opposition for some unknown reason. That summed a very poor performance from the official who didn’t allow the game to flow by not controlling the breakdown area and allowing himself to some gamesmanship. Finally with the last play of the afternoon Wallingford got their just reward when scrum half Matt DAWES found space on the right wing to score. The try was converted by prop BLASZKO as the final whistle blew.
It was a game that Wallingford could have secured both points, but at the end of the day they came up short against a side who manged to control things sufficiently in the right areas of the pitch. Next Saturday sees a free weekend before the side travels to Trowbridge the week after. All of the remaining five league games are winnable and have to be if the team hopes to finish in the top six.
Wallingford MOM: Will WOODWARD who was simply outstanding in the loose and fully deserved his two
tries.
