Thorns Blunted By Wanderers

A strong Wanderers side donned their traveling boots to make their first away trip of the league campaign to Thornbury.
Clifton held a 100% record over their South Gloucester rivals, but went into the game wary of the historically tough nature of the game and threat posed by Thornbury’s usual tendency to possess a strong game up front.

The Wanderers abundance of talent continued to be highlighted as London Scottish prop Lovejoy Chawatama stepped into the front row alongside veteran hooker Henry Mace. Clifton were also bolstered by the return of No.8 Fergus Manners and flanker Rob Penhale, whilst exciting new Southern Hemisphere imports Aaron Doignie and Cory Barlow took to the bench.

Clifton’s record this season of blowing teams out of the water in the opening stages of games was comprehensively thwarted by a gutsy Thornbury who from the opening kick-off retained possession for the first 10mins.

As the home side threw everything including the kitchen sink at the visitors the Clifton side lead by Josh Goddard remained resolute and repeatedly frustrated the Thorns attack.

A change in the tide saw Clifton put a sustained period of structure together resulting in winger Mike Cross blazing through to score the first of his afternoons hat-trick under the posts.

Thornbury seemed unable to come up with an answer to the visitors free-flowing game as Clifton found a third gear and tries followed for Cross again, centre Jack Watters, prop Ben Christie and fly-half Luke Blizzard who also grabbed his brace for the afternoon.

Fate conspired to deny the visitors a half century score before the break as winger Nick Fraser and centre Jordan Kelly failed to capitalise on opportunities.

The second half saw Cross seal his afternoons try haul from 40 yards out followed swiftly by Kelly who righted the earlier wrong by crashing over.

A consolation try for the home side finally emerged after a period of sustained pressure in Clifton’s 22 after the visitors fell afoul of the Referee’s penalty count, however it was young prop Ben Christie who sealed his M-O-M award with two excellent late scores allowing Blizzard to add to his tally of 9 out of 10 for the day.

Final score 7 – 68. The Wanderers march on.

Next Saturday sees in form Gloucester side Old Centralians make the journey down to ‘Fortress’ Station Rd. Anyone not satisfied with their Friday night fix of 1st XV rugby vs Dings is most welcome to come and support.

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