Minety RFC first team are back with a vengeance (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Minety RFC first team are back with a vengeance

MINETY RFC 1st XV announced their return to the Dorset and Wilts first division on Saturday with a comprehensive 24-nil defeat of Westbury.

Playing on a surface, baked hard as concrete by a fiercely burning sun, they scored four tries, but lost two key players to injuries in the process.

Playing uphill in the first half and hit early on by the loss through injury of forward David Hazell, Minety's well-organised defence nevertheless succeeded in shutting down all their opponents' attempts to run the ball back at them down the slope.

When they did concede ground, long-range kicks from hand ensured that they soon regained the territory they had lost.

The resulting stalemate left few opportunities for either side to score until, half-an-hour into the game, Minety missed a penalty goal attempt from 30 metres.

Five minutes later and at the other end of the pitch, a similar attempt by Westbury bounced wide off the right-hand upright.

Prior to this match, Minety's opening trial game against Fairford had revealed alarming deficiencies in their lineout.

Club coach Andy Ward's subsequent intensive work with the pack on this area paid ample dividends against Westbury, however, as the home forwards first competed and then gradually dominated in the lineout.

Significantly, when Minety finally broke the deadlock five minutes into injury time at the end of the first half, it was from a driving maul set up from a lineout deep in Westbury's 22.

They made steady progress towards the line until the visitors started to take out their opponents' legs in order to collapse the maul.

The referee had no option but to award a penalty try, and the teams turned round at half-time with Minety five points to the good.

Some 20 minutes into the second half, right-winger Ollie Bown took the ball on half-way, burst through one tackle and then beat two close pursuers as he sprinted down the right touchline to score in the corner.

A fine kick from James Tweedale then brought the score to 12-nil. Westbury responded with their best period of pressure, launching repeated attacks from within Minety's 22.

The home side resisted, but were temporarily reduced to 14 players when one of their number was yellow-carded for persistently straying offside.

Their defence stayed firm and it wasn't long before a breakout took the game right back into Westbury's half.

There a spirited run by Tim Vaughan set up a try for centre Brian Lindsey which Tweedale once more converted.

Minety's final try came in the closing stages of the game when fly-half Ryan Dowling took clean scrummage on the visitors' 22.

Having engineered a neat kick ahead to wrong-foot the advancing defence, he then followed up the ball to touch down and score.

The remaining five minutes of the match saw a Westbury player yellow-carded for persistent verbal abuse of the referee and Minety centre Lindsey seriously injured, following a high tackle by one of the visitors.

After the match, Minety coach Andy Ward congratulated all his players on a good performance by saying: "Our hard work on the lineout really paid off today. It just shows the importance of getting the set pieces right."

Assistant coach Mike Strong, who trains the Minety back line, agreed by adding, "Our game plan worked well. As a result, we always made ground in attack and squashed any moves that our opponents attempted."

The last word went to scrum-half Andy Brown, in his first game back as club captain since 1999. He said, "It was an all round team performance. "There was strong running out wide by our two wingers, Martin Coe and Ollie Bown, flanker Luke Huckin took good ball in the lineout, and no 8 Mark Holdsworth was excellent.

"We need to improve our first up tackling, but our covering defence was superb. The result reflects the hard work everyone put in at training on Tuesday and is a credit our two coaches."

Minety 2nd XV's scheduled home game against Supermarine II in Dorset & Wilts Division 3 North was postponed.

This Saturday, Minety firsts take a short trip down the road to Wootton Bassett II while the second team have a home fixture scheduled against their counterparts from Swindon College.