NEWBURY, so admired for their expansive style of play were reduced to penalties and drop goals on Saturday as the hungry Tigers, starved of a win since February 17, when they beat Moseley 40-24, secured only their third away win of the season after running in three tries to topple Newbury 15-28 at Monks Lane while shutting Newbury out along the way.

NEWBURY                              15

SEDGLEY PARK                      28 

National League Division One 

HAVING thrilled National Division One crowds with their expansive swashbuckling style, Newbury were humbled by the hard-nosed physicality of a Tigers side determined to get back to winning ways.

Sedgley’s approach worked, with the home side’s offensive game plan stifled at source, forcing Newbury to go for drop goals as tries were not on the agenda, thanks to a Tigers’ defensive game spurred on by the mantra, ‘Thou shalt not pass!’

Such was the ferocity of Sedgley’s start that they were 0-3 up inside the opening minute thanks to a Phil Jones penalty earned by the forwards’ ferocity. Four minutes later it was 0-10.After taking the first of four scrums against the head Jon Skurr, Jonny Roddam and Tim Fourie took turns to pick-and-go from successive mauls and from a metre out South African prop Petrus Du Plessis barreled over to claim the try, goaled by Jones.

On 15 minutes a rare Newbury excursion into the Sedgley half gave fullback Nick Defty a chance with the boot and his 35-metre penalty closed the gap back to seven points.

The home side had begun the game with fly-half Tim Walsh occupying the inside-centre berth and youngster Chris Ashwin wearing the Number 10 jersey. As it became evident from the first whistle that there were going to be few attacking opportunities in the forwards, Newbury began to switch the ball to Walsh, who drew the Sedgley defence before chipping over the top and rushing to retrieve possession.

This caught the Sedgley out the first couple of times but after that their rush defence handled it well. In fact so effective was this defensive effort that it was the 24^th minute before Newbury got into the Tigers’ 22.

Two minutes later Jones launched a long probing kick down the left touchline and it appeared the Newbury winger Nutt had it covered. But he did not reckon on rampaging Sedgley wing Chris Hall, who chased Jones’ punt and dispossessed him before racing to the Newbury posts to give Jones the simplest of conversions to make it 3-15.

With the Tigers controlling the set-pieces and pushing up to keep Newbury on the back foot the only way the home side could claw any points back was through Defty’s boot and a second penalty on the half-hour ensured it was 6-15 to the Tigers at half-time.

As expected the home side emerged for the second half fired-up, but with the way to the try line blocked they had to resort to Defty’s boot once more and he was successful with a 42-metre drop goal three minutes after the restart to close the gap to six points.

Jones replied with a straight forward penalty kick to make it 9-18 on the hour before a second Defty drop goal and a penalty from the half-way line cut it once more to three points.The kicking duel continued with Jones slotting over another penalty to make it 15-21 as the Tigers went in search of the bonus point.

They battered away at the Newbury line but it was five minutes into time added on before Adam Newton claimed his side’s third touchdown after possession from a five-metre lineout was turned into points. Jones kicked the extras and with referee Gareth Copsey finally blowing for time the Tigers missed out of a fifth point but nevertheless secured four with their third away victory of the season after dominating the opposition from start to finish. 

NEWBURY: Defty, Rees (Perkins 61), James (Smaje 61), Walsh, Nutt, Ashwin (Roberts 48), Simpson-Daniel, Bruce, Dalgleish, Cooper, Hayter (Chance 58), Radbourne, Damudamu (Rainbow 35), Morgan, Brown. Replacements not used: Greenwood and Robinson. Penalties: Defty 3. Drop Goals: Defty 2. Yellow card: Nutt (76).  

SEDGLEY PARK: Riley, Hall, Briers, Voortman, Craig, Jones, J. Albinson (Leck 58), Evans (Gazzola 57), Roddam, Du Plessis, Fourie, Norris, Newton, Ponton, Skurr. Replacements not used: Roberts, Keys, Jope, Swart and Duffy. Tries: Du Plessis (5), Hall (25) and Newton (76). Conversions: Jones 2. Penalties: Jones 3.