Winter Blues for Newbury at Stow
A depleted Newbury Blues side suffered a first defeat in three, losing 36-10 against a powerful Stow-on-the-Wold side.
Blues arrived in picturesque Stow prepared for a stern test, having suffered late heartbreak in a 29-24 defeat at Monks Lane in September.
The weather was much colder this weekend, but many of the problems that afflicted Blues in the summer sunshine continue to plague James McAvoy’s side, the Blues head coach forced to make four changes from the win over Salisbury following another spate of injuries.
Stow, who are second in the Regional 2 Tribute South Central table, took full advantage of Blues’ less-than-ideal preparations and raced into a 24-0 half time lead as Newbury struggled to come to terms with their impressive hosts.
To Blues credit the second half was a tighter affair, Newbury getting on the scoresheet 10 minutes after the restart when a solid scrum unleashed Toby Thorne who touched down wide left and reduced the arrears to 29-5.
There was time for another Blues score late on when Jonny Lees set off on one of his characteristic incisive runs, beating a succession of tackles to cross for a late consolation, the full time score 36-10.
Blues boss James McAvoy admitted it was a difficult weekend for his side, beset by injuries and well-beaten at the hands of a promotion-chasing Stow side.
“We actually thought we were in a strong position going into the week, we felt like we had a number of players set to come back from absences,” he said.
“As it turned out that wasn’t quite the case, we’ve picked up a few knocks and were down on numbers again.
“We handed another Blues debut to Marcus Carruzzo who did really well on the wing, but it’s always going to be the case that it’s difficult when you’re without some of your senior players.
“I was actually really pleased with how we responded in the week, even in the warm up we looked really good in terms of working out new combinations.
"A couple of 50-50 decisions that led to tries went against us early on, I had a good chat with the referee afterwards and I could see his point of view, but it's always disappointing when those decisions aren't in your favour.
"There were a couple of things in terms of physicality that we needed to look at, we weren't quite there in that regard and we didn't make the most of our solid scrum.
"The boys said all the right things at half time and we came back into the game in the second half, there are positives there for sure."
It's not about to get any easier for fifth placed Blues, who welcome unbeaten league leaders Marlborough to Monks Lane this weekend.
McAvoy's side suffered a humbling 50-3 defeat at the hitherto unstoppable Wiltshire outfit in September but the Blues boss is confident his side can provide a much sterner test on Saturday.
He said: "We'll approach it with a positive mindset, we've got to play them at some point and we've got our Christmas social on that day so I'm sure the crowd will give us a real lift.
"We're immensely proud of our record at Monks Lane and it's not one we want to relinquish, we won't let a team come down and beat us in a fashion.
"We're focused more on the process than the result, we're not going to talk too much about Marlborough, we'll train well this week and give it our best."
