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Old Sulians 26, B&A RFC 2nd XV 5 (03/11/12)

| 11/04/2013

Bridgwater travelled to Bath for an early kick off, hoping to improve on recent weeks form.

Preparations were not as good as they would have liked, with several players turning out despite playing the previous evening. Doug Page-Symonds and Will Kerry forming an unlikely second row partnership showed their club spirit by doing just this. They were joined by a scrumhalf who was spotted walking into the club on the arm of his lady friend from the preceding night’s festivities.

Tom Denovan also made a welcome return to rugby after being released by his wife for the day. Even with these call ups the United started with 14 men, as Andy Hambleton who was not due to play because of a serious bout of flu, got stuck in traffic on the way to the ground.

The first ten minutes were a scrappy affair on an uneven and muddy pitch, but some decent hands from the Sulians back line enabled the winger to score in the corner, the conversion was missed. This early setback did not dishearten the Bridgwater team as manager Dave Staples took to the field to make the team up to a full compliment, hoping to fill a gap out wide.

However the Bath side were now full of confidence and quickly scored another try following a break through the centre, this try was successfully converted. Bridgwater then embarked on one of their best periods of the game, with some good work by the pack taking play into the opponents half, the ball was quickly recycled and some lovely interplay between Will Kerry and Dave Rae resulted in a try by Rae. The conversion was narrowly missed.

Hambleton by now had arrived and took to the field shortly after. The rest of the first half was littered with errors from both teams and the scores remained at 12 – 5 to Old Sulians at half time. 

The second half followed a similar fashion with Bridgwater spend the majority defending, somewhat heroically at times, weathering some serious pressure on their own try line. Sulians scored two tries in the second half, converting both of them. Bridgwater rarely had the ball and when they did struggled to put together more than two or three phases.

There were a few instances where they looked dangerous spreading the ball from one side of the pitch to the other, but with the line beckoning, Sulians managed to get a hand to the ball and prevent the score. 

The final score was 26 – 5 to Old Sulians.

The United now have two weeks to regroup before the visit of Chard 2nd XV to College way.

Team: Denovan, Rae, Kerry J, Lang, Owens, Walker, Saunders, Moulding, Page-Symonds, Kerry W, Russell, Windsor, Stradling (Capt). 
Reps (all used): Staples, Hambleton

Category: 2nd Previews / Reports -XV, 2nd XV News

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