Newmarket 53 - 7 Royston

A shortage of players made life difficult for Royston. Even with 3 Newmarket loan players bolstering their side they still struggled and the home side ran in 9 tries.

Newmarket should have scored from the first play of the match but the ball was spilled over the try line. Instead they scored from the second play when Nathan Buckle touched down following a strike against the head at Royston's scrum. They scored again straight from the kick off with Dan Bristow charging half the length of the pitch and followed that up with a further try from the fourth play. This time Jack Watson weaved his way through the defence to finish under the posts and provide Oliver Green with a straightforward conversion.


Royston immediately returned the compliment. Turning over the ball near the opposition line Newmarket forgot to tackle and Royston's speedy fullback raced the length of the pitch for their only try of the match. Their celebration was short-lived, though, as good passing between backs and forwards allowed Dan Downing to restore the score margin.


The Newmarket forwards continued to show deadly running skills every time they gathered the ball in their own half and soon extended the lead with the first of Chris Le's three tries. Just before half time the ball found its way out to the wing and offered Dylan Allan a rare opportunity to stretch his legs. Tackled 10 metres out the ball popped to Aiden Cooper who touched down in the corner.


A re-shuffle of the loan players and an injury to Gwilym Davies meant that Newmarket started the second half with players in unfamiliar positions. It took a while for them to re-establish their dominance. However, Le was soon over the line again and Green added the second of his four conversions. Royston continued to impress with their never say die attitude and loanee Thomas Locke, playing in unfamiliar colours, took them close to the Newmarket try line. Despite having a 5 metre scrum they couldn't get over the whitewash and Liam John stole the ball to clear the danger.


For five minutes the contest swung to and fro with good Royston runs being snuffed out by determined Newmarket tackling especially from Cooper, and backs Ian Moffat and Connor Huckin. And it was the backs who set up the next try with scrum half Lewis Heap slipping the ball to Moffat who put Le in again under the posts.

The match finished pretty much as it began. Royston's re-start didn't go the 10 metres and from the resulting scrum Buckle picked up the ball and carved his way to the try line.

It was a convincing Newmarket win against gallant but seriously depleted opponents, but one in which individual skills were more apparent than teamwork.