Sat 4 Dec 2004
Wallingford 0 - Swindon 26 (04.12.04)
Wallingford slumped to their second consecutive league defeat after being outplayed by the well organised and powerful Wiltshire side. With injuries taking their toll the home side had to shuffle their starting line up yet again with winger Gavin HULL being asked to fill in the problem area of scrum half. However Wallingford were the orchestrators of their own downfall early on with some poor line kicking. Then worse was to follow when after only ten minutes on the clock Wallingford foolishly tried to run the ball from within their own 22 metre line, and outside half Don JENKINS pass was intercepted by the Swindon inside centre and skipper WAKEFIELD who went over for the opening core, which was converted by MAYCOCK. Five minutes later the lead was increased when after a line out 5 metres from the Wallingford line the heavier Swindon pack drove the ball over the Wallingford line for a second try which again was converted by MAYCOCK.
It was 30 minutes before Wallingford were able to get into the visitors line and they again contributed to their own downfall when a 22 metre drop out was charged down and the ball was gathered by the Swindon pack who rolled the ball towards the home side’s line before releasing the ball along the line for centre WAKEFIELD to score his second try and put the visitors in a very comfortable lead. The last 5 minutes of the first half saw Wallingford lay siege to the visitors try line but after being awarded a number of penalties which they opted to run they couldn’t breach the visitors last line of defence.
The second half started just the way Wallingford didn’t want it to when after only 5 minutes the Swindon centre WAKEFIELD broke several tackles and when the ball was then fed wide hooker CHAPMAN was on the end of a try scoring pass. The conversion attempt from MAYCOCK failed.
Finally Wallingford got into the game and started to put together some good passages of play, but when they did get into the visitors 22 they didn’t possess the incisiveness of the visitors to breach the last line of defence.
Next week the side travels to Chesham in the league and we know from only a couple of weeks ago what a tough fixture that can be. The side hopes to welcome back from injury skipper Olli HENDERSON.
