Thorne's pride at Blues side

Newbury Blues captain Dan Thorne kicked five successful conversions as his side demolished Buckingham 45-0 in their first game back since the winter break.

The win moves Newbury up to fifth in the Regional 2 Tribute South Central table and Thorne, who has more than 220 Blues caps to his name, is satisfied with where his side are at, a little over halfway through the campaign.

Blues lost their first three games of the season, including a humbling 50-3 defeat to Marlborough, but then won seven of the next eight.

Blues have been notably injury hit this term, with almost 40 players featuring, including a number of youngsters.

"I think we're pretty content with where we're at," Thorne said.

"We had a really slow start but have bounced back with some great performances, both individually and collectively.

"It's been a real challenge given the number of injuries we've had, especially given that we've had to cope without a number of senior players.

"I'm incredibly proud of how the younger lads have stepped up and the effort they're putting in to continually learn and improve."

Thorne's performances have been consistently impressive this season but even he's not been able to escape some time on the treatment table, and as such hadn't played for a couple of months prior to Saturday's win.

He said: "We had a really good year generally last year, I'm so proud to lead the team and see us develop as a squad.

"Even when we've had tough days, we've always bounced back and I think we've learned from everything to become a better team moving forward and into next season.

"Saturday's game was actually my highlight of the season, it had been such a long time since we played and it had been even longer for me, having missed the last couple of games with an injury.

"The whole week in the lead up was brilliant and to top it off with a brilliant performance at home to start the year with a win, it doesn't get much better than that."

Blues appear to have a winnable run of fixtures this month and a place in the top three is still up for grabs, although they'll have to take on unbeaten league leaders Marlborough and third placed Witney in February.

With the experienced Thorne leading from the front, the future of Blues looks bright.