SWINDON College Old Boys head coach Mark Lea was over the moon as he saw his ‘unselfish’ side run riot against Hungerford to progress to the Southern Counties Senior Vase final.

College came up just shy of the century mark as they put 96 points on the board without reply to book a meeting with Abingdon February 14.

The game was all but over in the first five minutes when Dan Cooper twice went over in the corner to give Swindon a 10-0 lead.

Charlie Grabe made up for his early misses with the boot to go over the whitewash twice to add to tries from Matthew Allen, Stuart Knight and James McLaughlin to give College a commanding 43-0 lead after 35 minutes.

The try of the game came just before the break. Captain Gareth Davis did well to force a knock-on with Hungerford looking certain to get their first points on the board, before Greig O’Brien broke forward with the ball going between the hands of Eoin Crean, McLaughlin and Allen before Grabe applied the finishing touch to give College a half-time lead of 50 points.

It was much the same in the second half as they refused to take their foot off the gas against a travelling side who had all but thrown the towel in.

Knight went on to score a second-half hat-trick to add to his first-half try with Tucker Blinkhorn also scoring twice in between.

Allen got his name on the scoresheet again to add to further tries from Gary Bandy and Liam Davis to complete the rout.

“After ten minutes we probably knew the game was going to be ours but all you ask the lads to do is go through the processes that we do week on, week out against the better sides,” said Lea.

“What happens when you start winning 30 or 40 nil is everyone starts going to the line but today, people were just taking that pass, drawing people in and it was so unselfish.

“You can only play what is in front of you, so fair play for them coming down with a depleted side, but 96-0 is not much of a game.

“Once you are 40 points up I just asked the lads to start going through the patterns that we always play and then it is like a contact training session.”

College now face Abingdon in the Southern Counties area final, a side they have already beaten 31-15 away from home in the league this season.

“Abingdon are in our league and again we have beaten them this season. They are a good team but it is a game we should target for a win,” Lea added.

“After that game there are two more games before Twickenham, I think.

“The Gloucester and Cornwall sides will be hard rugby and then, when you play against the south east sides you are looking at really skilful rugby, but we have got a good squad and we are in a really good place.”