MARLBOROUGH skipper Jamie Pittams believes his side must improve their discipline despite their debut South West One East win over Swindon on Saturday, writes SAM HILL.

The division newcomers started the game well, building a 17-0 lead and despite Swindon cutting the deficit, the newcomers closed out a 24-12 success at Greenbridge Road.

“It feels great to get our first win, especially in the first game of the season against a tough side,” Pittams said.

“We knew it would be tough with the step up into a higher quality league but we started well and took our chances when they came to us.”

Marlborough's quick start paid dividends as Garth Bari burst through Swindon’s defensive line and offloaded to Pio Tuwai to touch down between the posts, although the conversion was missed.

Tuwai was soon in again, chipping the ball over the defence and chasing down the ball to score his second, with the extras added by Will Grant.

Debutant Tom West put Marlborough within five metres of the Swindon line and a good lineout move led to Inosi Laqekoro diving over, Grant’s conversion stretching the lead further.

Tuwai was sin-binned 10 minutes before half-time, allowing the hosts to exploit the extra man advantage, scoring an unconverted try through Charlie Cox, who added another on the stroke of the interval, Connal Knott converting to get the hosts to within five points.

But the only score of the second period saw a line-out which led to Lemeki Moala grounding the ball in the corner, Grant landing the conversions.

“I thought Tom (West) was brilliant for us,” added Pittams.

“For a debutant to perform that well and fit into the team so seamlessly it was great to see and really helped us get the win.

“We worked a lot in pre-season on set pieces and structure. It’s helped us as a team heading into a tough season.

“We definitely need to cut out silly errors when handling the ball so that we become more clinical as a team,”

Swindon captain Mike Thompson, who due to injury was watching the game, admitted: “You could tell the lads were a little rusty with it being our first real test after a tough pre-season.

“When we stuck to our game plan we punished Marlborough and retained possession we were able to put a lot of pressure on them.

“To their credit they had a good defence which I think made the lads try and play a bit more loosely which resulted in more mistakes and turn overs in key areas.”