Sat 11 Feb 2017
High Wycombe welcomed Stow on the Wold to Kingsmead for their first home match since October due to the fire and the postponement of the Marlow game. On a bitterly cold afternoon Wycombe were keen to put on a performance and continue their recent run of victories.
From the kick-off, Wycombe had the upper hand and were using their forwards and the rolling maul to good effect, and from a rolling maul scrum half Dave Thornton made a smart break deep into the Stow twenty-two and offloaded nicely to Tom Catchpole who scored under the post, unfortunately Freddie Roddick slipped when taking the conversion and it was missed 5-0. From a Wycombe scrum an excellent offload from Tom Catchpole put fellow centre Greg Butters throw a hole in the defence and into the twenty-two with the full back to beat a pass to Dave Thornton put Dave in under the posts with Freddie making the conversion 12-0 after twelve minutes. As in the first game Stow were again using their big number eight to try and make ground but some strong tackling nullified that tactic and Wycombe’s defence was coping well with what Stow threw at them. From a lineout on the Stow 10 metre line, the forwards kept it tight and made some metres, the ball was then spun out to the backs where yet again another impressive offload from Tom Catchpole this time put Freddie Roddick into space who went over untouched to score, with the conversion made 19-0. After some good work from the forwards and backs, a good run from Greg Butters was finished off by Jack Taplin, Freddie once again made the conversion 26-0. Some more good handling from the backs enabled them to slice their way through the Stow defence and several offloads put Freddie away to score in the corner 31-0. From the kick-off, Wycombe were penalised for being off-side, Stow kicked for touch and had a lineout five metres out. Initially the defence held firm but in the end couldn’t stop the Stow prop from scoring, 31-5. This score seemed to give Stow some belief and a yellow card to the Wycombe number Eight Eddie Roche for a high tackle saw Stow on the front foot and on the stroke of half time their fly half scored under the posts 31-12.
In the second half Wycombe took a while to recapture the form of the first half but from a scrum an accurate chip from fly half Matt Wardle was gathered by Tom Catchpole who was tackled immediately. Stow were then penalised for not releasing the tackler and Dave Thornton took a quick penalty and managed to evade several of the Stow forwards to score with Freddie converting 38-12. Although Stow had some territory and possession the Wycombe defence held firm and from a turnover Andy Easton kicked the ball to the Stow five metre line where their fly half collected the ball and did extremely well to evade two tackles. He then kicked the ball which was gathered by Freddie who saw the space in behind the defence and kicked through and gathered his own kick to score an audacious try 43-12. Wycombe added two further tries, another for Tom Catchpole after an offload from Eddie Roche and the final try was scored by Joff Forber, after the Wycombe Scrum, which had been under pressure for parts of the afternoon pushed Stow off the ball the ball was spun out to Joff who scored.
The final score was 57-12 and a fantastic team performance, next week is a tough trip to Thatcham.
