Blues thrown to the bottom

Defeat at Bridgwater leaves rugby club needing something special to avoid a fourth successive relegation

Bridgwater and Albion 33 Newbury Blues 12

BLUES are back to scraping along the bottom of the table after crashing to defeat number 11 in their must-win relegation battle in Somerset.

Both teams went into Saturday's game having lost on all 10 previous Division Three South and West outings, but the manner of Blues' beating suggests that it is going to be South West League rugby next term, barring a significant upturn in fortunes in the second half of the campaign.

Next up on December 3 are Chinnor, who dealt leaders Bournemouth their first defeat of the season on Saturday, and that is daunting enough. Meanwhile, Blues relegation rivals were all winning and that leaves Newbury trailing 16 points behind the safe zone.

Blues could not even offer up the excuse of fielding a young side at Bridgwater, whose line-up was younger still with two 17-year olds in the ranks. The home side always looked more threatening, although they were hardly guilt-free when it came to the errors that littered the game.

The visitors' failings included Oscar Matthews missing two kickable penalties in the opening 12 minutes and centre Jon Inglis making a late tackle on James Kerry that produced a yellow card before Bridgwater broke the deadlock when Rob Allen exposed the gap for Sam Osborne to convert.

Allen helped to create the second try, touched down by flanker Carl Brown and again converted. But Blues should have given themselves a lift when Isaac Nicholls touched down for Matthews to convert in the sixth minute of first half stoppage time.

But it was Bridgwater who swept out after the re-start with number eight Jake Childs touching down after four minutes and scrum half Dominik Griffin added the bonus point try after Bridgwater punished another Blues giveaway.

Lock Ali Blundell charged over for try number five before the midway mark in the second half, and Blues' only response was a Myles Roberts-Bailey, again in a lengthy spell of stoppage time at the end as they finished alarmingly adrift of a side that is already preparing for next season at a lower level.

THATCHAM narrowly lost their top of the tbale clash at Drifters in the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Premier Division, losing 23-15 to suffer their first setback of the season