MARLBOROUGH rounded off a strong first season in South West One East with a 43-24 victory at home to Swindon to wrap up fourth place in the table.

The hosts kicked off proceedings at the Common and made a strong start as Pio Tuwai crossed the whitewash in style before Jake Williams’ conversion made it 7-0 after just four minutes.

Williams added a penalty shortly afterwards, however, Swindon were not going to go down without a fight and they had a good spell of possession in the Marlborough half, although failed to convert that into points.

A Harry Jackson grubber kick then started a rapid Marlborough attack, and from a scrum, Garth Bari meandered his way through to the tryline, converted by Williams.

Five minutes later, Marlborough really began to assert their dominance. Ben Caravou latched onto a loose ball down the left and coasted past the Swindon defence to score a fine try. Williams converted once more.

Swindon responded with a converted try of their own, driving over the whitewash off the back of a huge lineout maul in the corner.

It was Marlborough who had the final word of the first half, though, when Jackson scored a sublime try.

Todd Johnson did brilliantly to keep the ball in play and quickly spread possession to stretch the Swindon defence, where Jackson collected to go over the line. Williams’ conversion made it 31-7 at the break.

Swindon started the second half well and swiftly got their second converted try after a spell camped on the Marlborough line.

However, Marlborough stemmed the pressure with another try of their own. Lemeki Moala broke through and offloaded to Inosi Laqekoro, who then popped the ball to Semisi Rasivo to finish the job.

The game continued to sway back and forth as Swindon scored two more tries in quick succession around the hour mark. Both came from driving mauls, and although the conversion was missed both times, the visitors did at least have a bonus point to their name.

With Swindon piling on the pressure, Marlborough began to slow the game down and finally killed things off with five minutes to go when Rasivo scored his second try of the game before a final Williams kick brought the scoring to a close.

Elsewhere, Royal Wootton Bassett were able to arrest their six-match losing run with a 38-31 final-day victory away at Oxford Harlequins to ensure they finish one place below Marlborough in fifth.

Chippenham end the season in eighth in the table following an entertaining 50-35 win at home to county rivals Trowbridge.

Jacob Unwin scored a hat-trick of tries for the hosts, there was one each for Aaron Clark, Harry Murphy, Brad Doggett, Matt Dickens and Al Mackenzie, who also added five conversions.