The home side were determined to put on a good display in front of the large crowd gathered for their Vice-President’s Lunch. They started well and soon had a 7–0 lead. Norton fought back and soon levelled the score when centre, Jack Rowles, weaved his way through the defence to score under the posts.
The home side kept the scoreboard ticking over with their fly-half controlling the game; he kicked well and unleashed his back line and the score soon reached 27–7. Norton’s normally strong running pack were pinned back by some very strong, well organised Devizes’ defence. The game was stop-start, with both teams struggling to understand the referee’s interpretation of the laws at the breakdown. This resulted in a high number of penalties to both teams, but not within kicking range.
Norton took a quick penalty, but the Devizes’ defence did not retreat and tackled Gimson illegally. The referee was forced to sin bin one of the home team’s props and in this incident, a serious injury to second row Gimson delayed the game. This left Jamie prone on the floor two metres from the line waiting for an ambulance. Having to move to another pitch to resume the match, Norton elected to scrummage and were awarded another penalty. Deciding to scrummage again, Norton drove Devizes backwards. Number eight, Denning, picked and powered towards the line, managing to ride the tackle from the scrum half, he reached out to score. The conversion added the extra points.
Norton upped their efforts to close in on their opposition, but these were in vain. The team’s replacements played well, with Dayne Swift and Jack Rideout adding fresh energy to the attack. Nathan Fear, making his First team debut, was out of position on the wing. He replaced Jack Rowles, who was Norton’s Man of the Match, for the last five minutes of the game. Rowles had to leave the field after suffering a cut to the head.
The team were well beaten 32–14 on the day, with Devizes getting revenge for the defeat in the last league game of 2016. This was a disappointing display all round, but Marlbough did the club a favour by beating North Dorset, the club in third position. This result keeps Norton’s promotion play-off hopes alive, just requiring a win versus bottom of the league Dorchester next week to secure the play-off position.