Alton 96pts, Southampton 5pts

BACK in action this weekend following last Saturday’s inactivity when they were awarded a home walkover in the London & South East Region Junior Vase cup competition, Alton welcomed Southampton to Anstey Park.

Warm autumn sunshine and a pitch in excellent condition, despite the recent heavy rain, provided the promise of a flowing game of rugby. So it proved, at least for the home club.

Alton totally outclassed their visitors and within two minutes of the kick-off winger Oli Fielder had scored the first try. Within three minutes centre Jess Powell, on a good attack line, took a good pass and struck the next blow with Joe Gwyther converting for a 12-0 lead.

A short lull in the scoring was then broken when Fielder collected his second try, with Gwyther again converting, as the lead was padded to 19-0. Gwyther himself scored next when he notced the individual try of the day, racing home from inside his own 22-metre area to outpace the defence. And after just 18 minutes, Alton had their try bonus point and a 24-0 lead.

The next try scorer was flanker Karter Whittock, who touched down for an unconverted try, while centre Aaron Harrington followed suit two minutes later, with Gwyther converting to put Alton out of sight at 38-0. To their credit, Southampton never stopped trying and were rewarded with five points when their forwards forced themselves over in the corner.

But 10 minutes later the home onsalught continued as Aton prop Nick Stoffel used his bulk to get over the goal line and Gwyther took the half-time score to 43-5.

The second half was all Alton as they kept the pressure on Southampton and through good support play, and excellent lines of running, they helped themselves to a further nine tries starting, with Fielder completing his hat-trick. Luke Parratt also starred with three tries to complement solo tries from replacement winger Zak Allen, Whittock, flanker Ryan Capes, winger Ryan Bale and full back Fran Williams. Gwyther put over a further four conversions to take his personal haul for the afternoon to 21 points.

Alton’s afternoon got even better when they learned that they now topped the league table as Farnborough had only earned a losing bonus point away to Ellingham & Ringwood, going down 22-15.

On Saturday, Alton travel to face Andover seconds in Hampshire 1.