Nov 05 - RFU Vase Newmarket (H)

L 15 - 17  Report attached

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Wymondham contrived, as the cliché has it, to ‘snatch defeat from the jaws of victory’ although, in truth, with a stuttering performance, this was not a game they deserved to win.

Starting with a much changed line up as a result of injury and unavailability, Wymondham held out for only 3 minutes before allowing the Newmarket centre to evade two tackles and cross the line just to the right of the posts. The conversion attempt cannoned off the post and failed to cross the bar.

Wymondham then endured ten minutes of pressure from the visitors who were making their weight advantage count in the set scrums  and looking for the crash ball in the midfield in an effort to repeat their initial success. However, on 14 minutes and deep in his own half, Stephen Simms intercepted a loose pass and outpaced the covering defence to score out wide. Kicker, James Wyatt, narrowly missed the conversion to leave the sides tied at 5 points apiece.

Shortly after, Wymondham lost their hooker, Mark White, to the sin bin for 10 minutes for persistent handling in the ruck. Despite being a man down, Wymondham mounted a spirited defence with Chris Brown, at flanker, conspicuous by his harrying of the opposition, and managed to hold out until half-time.

Tom Crowe replaced Matthew Bekker on the wing for the home side at the break.

The opening period of the second half followed the pattern of the first with the Red and Blacks showing glimpses of what they could achieve but never really putting together sufficient phases of play to trouble Newmarket while also being pulled back frequently for indiscipline with long blasts from the referee’s whistle.

On 11 minutes, Newmarket won the ball in midfield and quickly shipped it to their speedy winger who evaded the cover to touch down in the corner for an unconverted try.

It was now Newmarket’s turn to suffer from indiscipline and they conceded a penalty in their own half for failing to release the tackled player. Wyatt duly converted to bring the score back to 10-8 to Newmarket.

!8 minutes into the half, Wymondham won another penalty for offside but Wyatt slotted a difficult kick just wide of the uprights.

With 30 minutes of the half gone, the Red-and-Blacks began to exert some pressure of their own and three times the ball was adjudged to have been held up over the line- the third time in consecutive weeks that the pack had crossed the try line and been unable to demonstrate a clear touchdown.

Finally, however, the pressure told and, with 39 minutes of normal time expired, the ball was passed along the Wymondham line from the fly-half to supporting forward Josh Wright who juggled the pass before gratefully grounding the ball over the line. With the conversion failing, Wymondham had the lead by 15 points to 10 going into the last few minutes and must have thought themselves safely through to the next round. However, Newmarket had other ideas and, from the restart, forced mistakes from the home side.

With the clock running down, a Wymondham defender, in his own 22, tried desperately to boot the ball into touch but succeeded only in finding the broad chest of a Newmarket attacker who benefited from a kind bounce and gleefully dived over just to the right of the posts to present his kicker with an easy conversion to win the match.

Wymondham will hope that they can bounce back from this performance next week in the League and will be working hard in training to address the shortcomings exposed in this match.