Old Halesonians 21 Thornbury 36

Thornbury built on last weekend’s win at Chippenham with a good workout against Midlands side Old Halesonians and a thoroughly-deserved six-try win, writes Dave Fox.

A number of players played their first game of the season, including skipper Sam Evans, and five were making their first team debuts in a match of three thirty minute periods.

Thorns began well and a powerful run in midfield from Matt Holiday was followed by one from fellow centre Gez Asante as Thornbury adopted a direct approach at pace. Thorns went ahead after four minutes when the forwards were joined by their friends in the backs and drove over from a lineout, Asante touching the ball down from the back of the maul. The conversion hit the post.

After ten minutes on the defensive Old Hales began to secure possession and challenge the Thornbury defence, which applied pressure to the home attacks and forced Old Hales backwards. After a turnover was secured the ball was moved quickly to Alfie Richardson who raced from his ‘22’ to the home ten-metre line, drew the defence and passed inside to Mike Johnson who ran in for his first try for Thornbury. Richardson converted for a 12-0 lead.

Jake Goodridge cut through the home defence from the restart but his scoring pass was knocked on. Instead it was Old Hales who scored with a counter-attack from deep in their ‘22’ which led to a fine converted try. Thorns lead 12-7 as the first period drew to a close.

Thornbury changed half the side in the interval and ten minutes into the middle period Holliday joined a rolling maul to score. Midway through the period Louis Osborne scored on the left following an attack led by Tighe Shipton on the right. Jonny Sanderson converted for a healthy 24-7 lead. However, the home side exploited a gap close to the breakdown at the end of the period and scored a converted try. Thorns led 24-14.

Further changes to the line-up were made for the final period and shortly after the resumption of play Old Hales scored a third converted try. Now only leading 24-21 Thornbury supporters became nervous but Shipton gathered a charged-down kick from the restart to score in the corner. Thorns concluded the scoring when the pack shunted the Old Hales scrum over their own line and the industrious Osborne grabbed his second try which with Jack Pinker’s conversion put Thornbury out of sight at 36-21.

This was a fine collective performance with all the players knowing what to do and how to work with their team-mates. There were many encouraging performances but Louis Osborne was outstanding, linking well, and being a complete nuisance to the home side as well as scoring two excellent but contrasting tries.

Thornbury have a contested training evening at Hartpury College on Thursday 22nd against the University side and a final pre-season game with London side Chiswick at home on August 31st.

Scorers: tries –Osborne (2), Asante, Johnson, Holiday, Shipton; conversions –Richardson, Sanderson, Pinker.