WELLINGTON started the season a week early with a comfortable defeat in the Senior Vase, despite fielding a side disrupted by unavailability and injury.

That gave opportunities to several newcomers who performed extremely well to provide John Dunbar and his coaching team with some interesting selection problems for the immediate future.

Centre Sean Wainwright, half back Ryan Garland and wing Alex Taylor all looked comfortable with the latter two bagging a try and three conversions and two tries respectively.

Wellington went straight onto the offensive but the first score did not come until the half hour mark when flanker Henry Roffe-Silvester disrupted Blandford possession at a lineout.

Young prop Anthony Gill was there to pick up and had the presence of mind to slip it back to Roffe-Silvester when he was caught and the flanker made no mistake. Garland stepped up and converted with ease.

From the resulting five-metre scrum and subsequent maul Gill again drove through with full-back Kevin MacKenzie in close support.

He fed scrum half Tim Jenkinson who went over.

Roffe-Silvester then managed to charge down an attempted kick for position from midfield by the home side and quickly picked the loose ball up to feed Garland who sprinted in from the Blandford ten metre to make it 17-0 at the break.

There was not let up for the hosts after the break and Wellington extended the lead when Micky Norman who stormed across the line with three defenders in close attendance.

Blandford did their best to hit back but Wellington weathered the pressure and normal service was soon resumed.

Coach John Dunbar opted to make a double replacement on the half hour with stalwarts Simon Cottrell and Greg Mynett replacing their younger counterparts.

They immediately got into gear and won another scrum against the head.

The ball was transferred all the way along the line to Allie Taylor who comfortably ran in the try which fellow debutant Garland converted from wide out.

Konrad Breese and Tom Banfield were introduced for MacKenzie and John with Breese going straight to full back and Micky Norman moving to centre and Banfield to the wing.

Another set scrum against the head set up another try for Taylor who did extremely well to feint to go inside and stand the covering defence up and then dart away to the corner.

The final score of the game was again started at a set scrum with Jenkinson feeding Breese who had come up from fullback he duly released Banfield on the right who completed the score.