Sat 5 Dec 2015
Cometh the hour, cometh the man - well 18 of them to be precise. This was a well organised, committed and skilful 2s side that put a decent Newbury side away with a bit to spare. Although it didn't start so well as Newbury scored 5 mins into the game - Wycombe take a 22 drop out, caught on the half way line by a Newbury player who then ran straight up the middle of the pitch, virtually untouched by a Wycombe hand to score under the posts. The crowd were already getting restless as the fear of another Tadley performance took hold.
The only way was up after that and so it was to be. Everyone made their tackles, the forwards dominated in the scrum and line out and the backs moved the ball though the hands skilfully.
Jack Taplin scored first using his not inconsiderable height to reach over the line and score after 15 minutes and Baynsie scored our second just before half time after a flowing backs move built on yet more line busting direct running from Fradge - who had an excellent game running straight at the Newbury back line and generally causing Havoc every time.
5 minutes into the second half Anton drove over from a few yards out. Newbury then got their second try of the game to keep things tense. But just a couple of minutes after a fine effort from Josh was ruled held up Captain Canadian Dave scored the second try of his career to make the game safe.
The half back pairing of Simon and Joe did a great job of keeping Wycombe organised and moving, Joe kicked really well in difficult blustery conditions, Jack was a real nuisance on the Newbury throws and although the scrums went uncontested after 30 minutes due to a Newbury players injury our front row of Dave, Anton and Dan were on top from the start.
So a good win, which could have been 3 or 4 tries more comfortable as the final pass didn't quite stick on several occasions and overall a real pleasure to watch. And finally, thank you to the Newbury pysio who patched Gabriel up after a rather nasty split eyebrow. Now sporting a rather fetching blue bandana Gabriel is apparently refusing to take it off as the macho bloodied look is proving quite a hit with the opposite sex.
