A STRONG SECOND-HALF PERFORMANCE

REPORT WRITTEN BY Rob Wildman

Saturday April 22

Midlands Two East North

Newark finished the league in fine style at Market Bosworth by recording a third successive win by a good margin.

A strong second-half performance turned a 7-7 interval score into victory by seven tries to three which secured a finishing position of sixth in the league table.

Bosworth found the pace and link play too hot on a glorious spring day in Leicestershire. Led by Aloesi Waqalevu, who scored two tries in two minutes, Newark sped clear.

Besides the contribution of the midfield maestro, the other tries came from three emerging players in two each from centre Chaz Dixon and wing Billy Charles and one from flanker Ed Poulson. Alex Scott kicked five conversions.

Newark’s winning form has been helped in recent weeks by a reasonably settled team.

The same backline played on Saturday as in the win over Loughborough while the pack showed two changes in the return of hooker Gareth Bartsch and lock Ash Bagga.

There was also another chance in the second half for colts prop Nick Barton, who had made his league debut as a substitute against Loughborough.

An overwhelming win was an unlikely end result when Bosworth scored first, using their strong scrum to engineer a try and conversion.

Newark looked to be in for a hard afternoon and were not helped when Waqalevu was sin binned.

However, Newark regrouped to build pressure which ended in Charles scoring by racing onto Scott’s chip ahead.

The teams turned around locked at 7-7 and Bosworth led for a second time when they added a penalty earlier in the second half for a 10-7 lead.

The match turned in the 54th minute when Waqalevu scored off a set move from a midfield line-out, breaking through the Bosworth cover.

That triggered a memorable 15 minutes as Newark ran in four more tries against a tiring defence. Waqalevu immediately added his second straight from the re-start after Mikey Boyd had set up the attack from the kick off.

Another counter attack ended in a try for Charles before Dixon and Poulson finished off after more passages of excellent play.

Bosworth struck back to score two tries in the closing stages but Newark had the final word when Dixon grabbed the last to complete a good win.

Team: Scott; Charles, Dixon, Waqalevu, Hunter-Shaw; Chapple, Clark; Dunning, Bartsch, Hempstead, Bagga, Statham, Poulson, Boyd, Garland (capt).

Subs: Barton, Brown, Mackie.

Tries: Charles (2), Waqalevu (2), Poulson, Dixon (2).

Conversions: Scott (5).

Rob Wildman

End of season Photo(above) from Tom Pykett

Thanks to all the players, coaches and officials for the hard toil over the season.

Congrats on a good double at Bosworth.

Good luck to the 2nd XV in the Ron Rossin Cup final next Sunday (April 30) at Southwell, kick off 4pm.

MORE PHOTOS AT THE FOLLOWING LINK

http://www.newarkrugby.com/photos/newark-1st-v-market-bosworth-22417-743992.html