Sherborne 41 – 14 Marlborough
The weather may have been hot, but Marlborough definitely were not, and Sherborne took full advantage.
On Saturday (14 September) Marlborough took the arduous journey down to Sherborne with a very much weakened side than the one from the previous weekend against Salisbury. Seven first team players were missing; two of which had been seconded by Harlequins to play in the Premiership 7s Tournament at Franklin Gardens, where they helped Quin’s to get through to the quarter final stages of the Cup only to be knocked out by Bristol Bears (21-10).
From the kick-off, a very well drilled Sherborne team showed that they had come to play and to win in front of their home crowd. Within fifteen minutes, Marlborough were down by 10 points due to poor discipline and defending. By the twenty-fifth minute Sherborne had scored another try and conversion (17-0). Fortunately, in the last play of the first half, Marlborough scored a well worked try; a driving maul set up a nice backs move for Russell Westcott to score with Will Grant kicking the extra two points. At half time the score was 17-7 to Sherborne.
Marlborough started the second half well and were back in the hunt with a great multi-phase set play, lining Jack Lynd up for the try and again Will converted (17-14). Marlborough’s newly found zest was short lived as Sherborne then started to get the upper hand again and scored a very nice try from a cross field kick while playing a penalty advantage. By this time the penalty count against Marlborough was sadly well into double figures. The next score was a penalty kick from Sherborne for yet another Marlborough infringement straight in front of the posts. On the seventieth minute, Marlborough was handed a yellow card for a deliberate knock on and Sherborne ran in another two tries towards the end of the game – again due to poor defence. Final score Sherborne 41 – 14 Marlborough.
This was disappointing day for Marlborough, which was felt more due to the fantastic win the previous week. Yes, there were many reasons for the poor result, but it is only the second game of the new season and there is plenty of time for the boys to put the hard work in and come back fighting next week when they are home to Trowbridge.