Calne traveled away to Newbury for their round 5 second chance in the Powergen junior vase on Saturday after being reinstated when Honiton were removed from the competition for fielding a cup tied player when the two teams met. When Calne arrived and seen the impressive Newbury set up they knew that they were in for a hard game but what they didn’t account for was what felt like to be a referee making a mends for costing Newbury a game a couple of weeks previous.

Calne started fired up for the game but were very disheartened by the majority of decisions made. It is a known fact that Calnes discipline has majorly improved over the last season and a half but you would never guessed it by the amount of penalties conceded in the first half, even Guthrie Holiday, who hasn’t given a penalty away all year was given 10 minutes in the bin for so say being off side so many times. With no exaggeration every time Calne got into the Newbury half the referee would find something to award a penalty and with the good boot that the Newbury 10 had they found themselves back in their own 22. This is where the first score came from, Newbury won their own line out and passed out to the backs and to be fair scored an excellent try after the outside centre picked his angle well at pace and cut through the Calne defence, this was converted.

Time and time again Calne found themselves up the field and then straight back down again as if they were on a massive snakes and ladders board. This led to a kickable penalty being conceded which was also converted. Throughout the first half Calnes defence were really tested and they did well to only give away 10 points until the final minute of the half when the larger Newbury pack found their strength in the rolling maul and crossed the line to go into half time 15-0 up. The only half chance that Calne had in the first half was when Neil Young, (who may I add was noted as arguably the best Calne player ever in last weeks report but it should have read the oldest) almost got on the end of a typical interception but he could not quite keep hold of the ball.

The second half was a different story, after the team talk Calne decided that they would have to live with the decisions made and dig in deeper, and this they certainly did, applying pressure in all aspects of the game, Calne were winning all their own set pieces except the odd line out from Matt Arnold which was called not straight! Damon Murphy started robbing the occasional line out and with the likes of Pete McGarry, Rich Kearney and Alan Wicks carrying the ball well Calne were in the Newbury half more than their own. Then came a lapse of concentration for which Newbury punished Calne by going over for an unconverted try. Calne then stepped up another gear and were straight back down the field, Guthrie Holiday got his hands on the ball and weaved his way past numerous players to score a try that Lewis Baker converted. This fired Calne up even more and was now driving the much larger Newbury pack backwards. Wingers Seth and Mike Smith were running and defending well and stand in scrum half James Gladding was distributing the ball well. Calne almost crossed the line again after a well worked line out move from which Alan Wicks peeled round the front but his foot just caught the corner flag as he grounded the ball. With all the pressure applied, unfortunately they couldn’t convert into any more points and the game ended 20-7. Back in the clubhouse, in good spirits, Newbury awarded Guthrie Holiday as their Calne man of the match and back at Calne Damon Murphy was nominated. Although Newbury were a very good, well drilled side I can’t help but feel that maybe, a different day, a different referee then Calne would now be looking forward to round 6 but instead they wish Newbury good luck in the next round

Final Score. Newbury Stags 20 Calne 7

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