Marlborough 1st XV 22 Chippenham 1st XV 8
17 February 2020
A look back to Saturday 15 February 2020, the playing conditions for Marlborough who were hosting Chippenham on the Common were just awful – heavy rain, gale force wind and a very sodden pitch, not the ideal conditions or so you would have thought.
The home side adapted really well to the playing conditions; as well as giving a first senior team start to 19-year-old scrum half Edi Moku. The team also welcomed back from injury, 18-year-old Kuki Daunakamakma. along with Colt player Ben Wilmot, again making the first team squad and impressing when he came on.
Marlborough’s scrum proved to be the dominant force due to the work done by forwards Coach Fa’ao Filise during training which is now really starting to pay off. Due to the conditions the line outs were a bit of a lottery for both teams.
In the first half, Marlborough played up the slope, with the wind behind them, there was some excellent tactical kicking by Daniel Jones, Mac Lewis and Jake Kane which kept Chippenham under pressure. Marlborough’s first try came from a patient build up by the forwards which ended up with the Captain, Insosi Leqekoro, scoring in the corner but the conversion missed, 5-0.
Chippenham tried to put pressure on Marlborough, but the home sides defence held. The next try was scored by Tui Tuilovoni after a hard and direct run from Mac Lewis sucking in Chippenham’s defence, offloading to Ovini, who beat his marker to score, again the conversion was missed, 10-0.
Chippenham then kicked a penalty taking the scores to 10-3. Ovini Tuitoga then went and got his second try following a nice move by the backs which showed excellent handling in the conditions, the conversion missed, 15-3.
Chippenham fought back with an unconverted try of their own as the Marlborough defence seemed to have switched off bringing the halftime scores to Marlborough 15 – Chippenham 8.
The conditions were going from bad to worse in the second half and the pitch was now cutting up very badly which was starting to negate Marlborough’s scrum. Again, the kicking by the backs, even into the gale was pretty good. Inevitably handling errors from both sides increased as the ball felt as though it had been covered in soap in the second half.
Marlborough squandered a couple of chances just dropping the ball when the try line beckoned. There was only one score in the second half with Ovini Tuitoga scoring his second hat-trick in consecutive weeks, an excellent try under the posts but Daniel Jones converted this one – final score Marlborough 22 – Chippenham 8.
This was an excellent team performance by Marlborough who were superbly led by Insosi Laqekoro (Knoxy). It is difficult to pick out any individual performance as the whole team stepped up but young Edi Moku, making his first team debut in those conditions and playing as well as he did, does deserve a mention.
Past Matches played against Chippenham 1st XV
In 1977 Marlborough beat Chippenham 1st XV 23-3, in the semi-final of the senior cup under the captaincy of George Haddock.
At this time M.R.F.C normally played Chippenham 2nd XV, so this victory was totally unexpected.
Recent years after promotion to Wadsworth 6X South West1 East
26/10/10/2018 :-Marlborough 36-Chippenham 21
26/01/2019 :- Chippenham 17-Marlborough 10.
26/10/2019 Chippenham 15 Marlborough 17
