Wellingborough 15 v 72 Scunthorpe

Wellingborough welcomed the return of their captain Pete Vickers after his successful ascent of Kilimanjaro a week earlier for The Help for Heroes charity. This welcome return failed to inspire or allow Wellingborough to capitalise on the previous week’s improvements when they faced one of the top and ‘in form’ sides in the league, in Scunthorpe.

Even so the home side were very optimistic, especially after the previous week’s victory and last years fine performance where Wellingborough recorded a valuable win over Scunthorpe, but in their preparations they were unable to field the same 15 from the winning side and were forced to make several late changes. 

Playing up the slope, Scunthorpe applied early pressure that resulted in a penalty and 2 unconverted tries for a 13 nil lead by the 10^th minute. Wellingborough mounted there own pressure and were rewarded a penalty in front of the posts 35 metres out from the Scunthorpe line this was duly slotted over by the Wellingborough captain Pete Vickers.

The game remained very open and in the 36th minute Steven Gall intercepted a pass in Scunthorpe ¾’s and sprinted 40 metres for a try under the posts converted by Pete Vickers (10 – 13).

Wellingborough, buoyed by this score, tried to up the tempo and in the 38 minute, in front of the large crowd of past players, witnessed a very sickening head collision between Martin Little and Paul Lambert at a ruck on the halfway line.

This left both players unconscious; the referee was unaware of the situation even after several requests to stop the play and allowed Scunthorpe to score in the corner making the half time score 10 – 18. Both players were unable to continue and because of the serious nature of the head injury to Martin little and there were no ambulance ground units available an air ambulance was despatched from Coventry.  This duly arrived midway through the second half.

A double substitution had to be made at half time and Wellingborough lost all shape and direction allowing 2 converted tries and 2 unconverted tries from a very clinical Scunthorpe side making the score 10 – 44, by the 58^th minute.

Wellingborough, now just playing for pride, forced their way into Scunthorpe’s half and from this good phase of play released Dan Fitzhugh to score in the corner (15 – 44).

Scunthorpe were just stung into a very positive response and in the last 10 minutes they scored a further 4 converted tries making the final score 15 - 72.

Scunthorpe’s left wing Rewiti Vaimoso ended up with 4 tries with 2 apiece from Daniel McClean and Roger Hensby.