MARLBOROUGH continued their perfect start to the new South West One East season with a seventh successive victory, triumphing 40-12 away at Witney.

Lemeki Moala got the ball rolling for the visitors, taking a high pass from Avenai Cakaunitavuki before dummying and driving over the line, with Will Grant kicking the conversion.

The second try was set up from a ruck as scrum-half Jake Williams passed to Joe Visei to run in under the posts, Grant again converting.

It only two more minutes for the third try to arrive as Visei and Moala combined to release Grant, who sprinted up field and was eventually tackled five metres short of the line. Support was there immediately and Epeli Kotobalavu moved the ball to Garth Bari to dive over under the posts before Grant again converted.

Marlborough’s points tally became 28 after half-an-hour when another quick attack saw Tom West get the ball out to Grant and he moved it onto Pita Robanakadavu, who beat a number of men before getting over the line for a bonus-point fourth converted try.

The visitors’ domination dipped when captain Jamie Pittams was shown a yellow card and with the man advantage, Witney applied a lot of pressure and scored a converted try of their own to cut the gap to 28-7 at half-time.

Witney started the second half as they had finished the first and were immediately on the attack, swiftly getting their second touchdown of the game.

However, the hosts’ resurgence was stopped in its tracks when a good pass from Williams was gathered by Visei, who offloaded to Cakaunitavuki to run in and score from 20 metres.

Marlborough’s final try came on the hour mark when a good lineout move saw Inosi Laqekoro take the ball and offload to Kotobalavu to run in unopposed, with Grant’s conversion the last points to be scored.

Elsewhere, Royal Wootton Bassett moved up to third in the table after making it six wins from the opening seven fixtures with a 35-22 success away at Wimborne.

Chippenham have not been able to match the form of their Wiltshire rivals and fell to a fifth defeat of the campaign when leaders Newbury Blues triumphed 48-17 at Allington Fields.

Newbury hit their straps quickly and had run in four tries before the hosts could get any points on the board, with their first strike coming after lovely handling from Tom Fogerty and Jacob Unwin released Louis Ayliffe for a try.

Another Newbury touchdown made it 31-5 at the break but Chippenham struck first after the restart as Ben Hathaway’s break sent Ayliffe in for his second try.

Although Newbury continued to rack up points, Chippenham never lost heart and Oli Alcorn broke through to score an excellent try which he converted himself, however, the hosts’ efforts in chasing a fourth bonus-point were in vain.