Wycombe respond to cup miss with biggest victory

They steamrollered Wallingford 43-26 in Southern Counties North to draw a bold line under the club’s low point in the cup.

Director of rugby George Dorling said: “From the previous week, I’m pretty pleased with the response.

“We had everybody available and we’ve got everybody available again this weekend.I couldn’t have asked any more really.”

And Dorling also dropped the bombshell that Wycombe’s cup forfeit let Milton Keynes off the hook.

He understands that they too were struggling to get a team together for the game.

He said: “I heard on the grapevine that although we called it off, they were very close to calling it off themselves. We just blinked first.

“They were going to have put out a second team and it was relief for them when we called it off.”

That will only add to the sense of frustration at Kingsmead, but does underline the general disregard for cup competitions in Bucks.

The leagues remain paramount though, and Wycombe are well-set in sixth place after Saturday’s victory.

Fly half Matt Wardle crossed twice in the victory, with Greg Butters, player/coach Luke Harding and Sam Churchyard also going over.

Harding said: “It was a good performance. Our attacking play was superb.

“Our focus was on clearing the rucks and Wallingford couldn’t handle the speed we played.

“We need to work on our discipline and we gifted them a lot of their points, but luckily we outscored them.”

Wycombe will expect to build on that victory with another convincing performance on Saturday when they go to bottom club Swindon College Old Boys.

They haven’t won a match all season and their last run out was a 101-0 humiliation at leaders Bletchley – although they had been much more competitive on home soil against second-placed Aylesbury the previous weekend.

Harding said: “We’ve got to work for the win. We can’t be arrogant about it and just assume it will come because they’re bottom of the league.”