Defeat number 15 for Blues

11-try rout to start the year as Blues' survival hopes take yet another pounding

THE new year brought no change to Newbury Blues' fortunes as they crashed 63-7 at Exmouth to leave a fourth successive relegation looking even more inevitable.

An early try by Tom Sanders was as good as it got for the visitors as Exmouth ran 11 tries through Blues' leaky defence.

Sanders' fifth minute score was converted by Dan Thorne, but three tries in a 10 minute spell from Jack Downie, Dave Kimberley and Ross Morshead put Exmouth in the clear, and tow more followed before the break from Downie and Paul Morgan to make it 27-7 at the break.

Blues had Paul Hawkins sin-binned at the start of the second period and shipped three more tries in that spell to Dave Bargent, Morshead and Jon Fabian, and the half century came up on the hour mark when Downie touched down his third try. Dave Kimberley and Fabian added further scores against a 14-men Blues, leaving them needing to win at least half of their remaining fixtures to stand any chance of avoiding yet another drop.