Depleted Blues down but not out

James McAvoy’s Newbury Blues suffered a thumping 50-3 defeat to in-form Marlborough – their third successive loss since the season started last month.

The result leaves winless Blues in 11th, while unbeaten Marlborough sit atop the league table.

A depleted Blues side were forced to make seven changes to last week’s squad, handing a debut to Jamal Watson.

Newbury responded well to going behind 11 minutes in and, when Marlborough were reduced to 14 after the referee sent one of their number to the sin bin and Dan Thorne kicked the resulting three points to take the score to 5-3 on 16 minutes, the contest looked to be in the balance.

That was as good as it got for the Blues, however, who were unable to capitalise on the extra man before two Marlborough tries saw the sides go into the break with the score 17-3 to the hosts.

Into the second half and McAvoy’s side held out until 65 minutes when Marlborough stole a Blues lineout and crossed the whitewash to make it 24-3.

That score seemed to knock the wind out of Blues, who conceded four tries in the final 10 minutes to lose the game 50-3 – a scoreline that perhaps failed to do justice to some valiant performances from inexperienced Blues.

“It was a difficult afternoon, we know Marlborough want to be up there this season,” McAvoy said.

“We haven’t been blessed with injuries and a lack of availability, that made selection difficult.

“There were some positives, especially in the first half, but we made mistakes in the wrong areas.

“We won’t panic, there’s no need to.

“We can process what’s happened, we know the quality that we’ve got, it’s just those small bits of execution now that we need to improve.

“These first three rounds have allowed a lot of the younger boys to play Blues, in the long run that can only be good for us.

“Some of those boys have really shone, that’s a real positive.”

"The injuries are frustrating, but we've got a lot of lads that can step up, it's my job to help them improve their skills so that they're in a position to do that.

"It's fine margins, I think we could've won both of the first two games, we always knew Marlborough would be difficult.

"The next four rounds are winnable, let's hope we can push ourselves up the table now."

Next up for Blues is another home game against fourth placed side Tottonians this Saturday while the Stags, who forfeited their match against Henley at the weekend, travel to local rivals Hungerford.