Around 30 of Salisbury Rugby Club’s players made the short journey to local rivals Wheatsheaf Cabin Crew on Saturday for their second and final pre-season warm-up game.
The players were a bit rusty after the summer, and the very hard ground led to a lot of injury breaks so the game was rather disjointed. But with several former Salisbury players now representing Wheatsheaf, there was no shortage of enthusiasm or commitment from either side.
Wheatsheaf started strongly, dominating possession and territory. But they were unable to capitalize, and Salisbury opened the scoring with a try from fly-half James Gamble.
Further tries from Mike Dauwalder, Joe Paden, and a penalty try saw Salisbury go into half-time leading by 24 points to nil.
Wheats made a strong start to the second half, scoring two tries. Then the teams neutralised each other’s attacks for a long time until Salisbury ran in three tries in the last 10 minutes, two from Dan Hammond and one from Chris Vuki, to run out comfortable winners.
Salisbury’s Director of Rugby Jeff Watt said after the game: “It was a really positive run out for the final weekend of our pre-season and brilliant to see some of our ex age grade players putting their hand up for selection.
“The Wheatsheaf gave our defence a stern test, which mostly held out. Pleasingly we were able to link some phases together in attack and score some excellent tries. All focus now switches to a home double header next week, including the 1st XVs first league game.”
This Saturday Salisbury’s 2nd VX will host Nelksham’s 2nds, kick-off 1pm. The 1st XV will follow at 3pm, hosting Royal Wootton Bassett’s 2nds.
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