MARTIN Lloyd’s Swindon College Old Boys booked their place in the next round of the Dorset & Wilts Senior Vase despite a second-half slumber on Saturday.

The final score was 35-30 to the home side, but director of rugby Martin Lloyd admitted it should have been a more comfortable afternoon for his side as Corsham rallied after the break.

“It was good and bad to be honest. We started off really brightly for the first 30 minutes where everyone was playing very well and very structured rugby,” said Lloyd.

“Then we lost our way. We were 28-9 points up and we only won 35-30 so we should have carried on really.

“It was obvious Corsham were going to put some pressure on us and when they did we lost our way. We were quite disappointing in the last 40 minutes.”

The College tries came in the shape of Liam Spillane, Tucker Blinkhorn as well as Florin Palcau, who also booted three conversions and three penalties for a 20 point haul.

Romanian full-back Palcau was showered in praise from Lloyd after putting in a man of the match performance in the cup win.

“He was outstanding. He just put everything over. I don’t think he missed a single kick and he scored a fantastic individual try,” added Lloyd.

“He was safe in defence, safe under the high ball and his all-round game was outstanding. He was very, very good.”

The Old Boys chief is hoping his side will have learned they can be vulnerable if they fail to manage the game correctly ahead of their trip to Tadley in the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Premier this coming weekend.

“It was a lesson for us, I think it has dawned on the players if we don’t keep our composure and concentration then we are vulnerable,” he added.

“It’s still a win, we advance in the cup, they’re a good team and we have played them over the last few years, we normally have a pre-season game against them.

“They’re well structured, they’re adventurous and they like to play it wide which is something we aspire to.

“We still want to play the game wider, we did lose our way a bit which was disappointing.”