Salisbury "A" 10 - Puddletown 43
11th. November 2023 - Salisbury "A", the club's 3rd string, welcomed league high flyers Puddletown to Castle Road.
After an impeccably observed minute silence for Armistice Day, we got off to a good start, applying lots of pressure in Puddletown's 22. This led to a penalty after in our favour 10 minutes. Puddletown then got organised and ran in a try 3 minutes later, converted to lead 7-3.
We missed a penalty, then Puddletown started to look slick and ran in two tries in quick succession. It looked as though they might run away with it but we defended well and there were no further first-half scores. We went into the break trailing by 3 points to 19.
Puddletown scored quickly from the restart. We then held them for half an hour until they eventually broke the deadlock with a converted try for 3-31.
We then scored a great try behind the posts, converted successfully for 10-31 and were eager to get back into the game.
In the end it looked as though fatigue was getting the better of us. Puddletown ran in two more tries during the lengthy injury time to win the game by 43 points to 10.
Despite the lopsided scoreline this was a good and committed performance against a well organised team who were obviously well used to playing together.
Report & photos: John Palmer
