BARFC 17, Teignmouth 10 (19/12/15)

With this hard-fought struggle, Bridgwater have retained second spot in the league. Camborne’s loss at Thornbury has reduced the gap at the top but Thornbury, thanks to their bonus point win, are now equal on points with Bridgwater, but Bridgwater, with one more win than Thornbury, stay second.
Bridgwater gave a 1st XV debut to 17 yr old Callum Gillard on the wing and rested some of the more experienced players, James Bryant, Dan Kemmish and 1st XV skipper, Ollie Dunn, who went to the bench prior to playing for Bristol ‘A’ on Monday night. They also welcomed to the bench, Stuart Heal, whose work has prevented his playing so far this season.

Playing with the wind, Teignmouth, in their first ever game against Bridgwater & Albion, belied their lowly league position by taking the lead with an early penalty by Daniel Force from 40m although he later missed a slightly shorter one. The visitors increased their lead mid way through the half. They kicked a penalty to touch deep in the home 22 and at the lineout set up an unstoppable driving maul that ended with a try for hooker Pete Parsons. Force converted with a good kick.
Bridgwater then began to show the form that their league position demands. Home skipper for the day, Rob Allen, put the visitors under pressure with a 40m break and when Bridgwater recycled the ball on the visiting 22, Teignmouth were penalised. Chris Ashwin landed the straightforward penalty.
Bridgwater were now much more into the game. On the half hour, Callum Gillard, broke through and was tackled by two Teignmouth defenders at once. The referee blew immediately as the two tacklers, who had clashed heads, were both prone on the floor. Full back, Daniel Luffman did not recover sufficiently and took no further part in the game.
The game flowed from end to end as both sides strived for the vital score – in vain – to leave it at 3-10 at the break.
Bridgwater started the second period very brightly and Allen almost broke through but was tackled into touch at the corner. With only 10 minutes gone, one of the floodlight pylons failed but the game was allowed to continue.
Allen continued to run strongly and after a couple of penalties to touch that came to nothing, Bridgwater opted to scrum the next penalty only 10m from the visiting line. The drive was good and the home side drew level when Taylor Buller touched down in the corner. Ashwin converted with a superb kick.
Five minutes later, from a scrum in midfield, Ashwin made a clean break before moving the ball right. It reached Gillard who scored a debut try, converted by Ashwin.

Teignmouth hit back and thought they had scored as they again drove over the home line, but the referee deemed the ball to have been lost forward.
When Bridgwater cleared their lines with a long kick, Teignmouth were penalised but Ashwin was wide from 30m.
Bridgwater dominated the final minutes and had further chances to kick at goal but spurned them in the search for more tries. However, the score remained at 17-10 giving Bridgwater 4 points and Teignmouth 1 point.
Whilst still not quite firing on all cylinders, Bridgwater showed a vast improvement on the previous three matches. They had obviously learned from last week’s performance at Avonmouth. In wet conditions that did not encourage open rugby, some very powerful running in the backs, particularly by Ashwin and Allen, caused problems in the visiting defence. Bridgwater’s defence, as ever, was quite strong. The set pieces did not always go Bridgwater’s way but were reasonably solid.
Bridgwater rotated their replacements during the second half, making five interchanges in all, in trying to keep the players fresh.
At the mid-point of the season, Bridgwater will be very happy with their position. Yes, they would have liked to score more tries and thus gain bonus points but 10 wins out of 13 matches – and unbeaten at home – is a very good basis on which to build the second half of the season.
The next game is at Chard – who won at Coney Hill this week – on January 2nd with the next home game on January 9th at home to Clevedon – who were very narrowly beaten at Weston SM on Dec 18th.
The club wish to thank all their friends for their continued support both home and away. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Scorers :
Bridgwater & Albion
Tries:Buller, Gillard
Cons:Ashwin (2)
Pen:Ashwin

Teignmouth
Try:Parsons
Con:Force
Pen:Force

Bridgwater Team:
Jonathan Hill, Rob Allen (Capt), Rob Gurnett, Will Kerry, Callum Gillard, Chris Ashwin, Scott Franklin, Lewis Phillips, Gabriele Nobili, Joe Bussell, Ali Blundell, Rob Thompson, Ethan Trebble-Westlake, Luca Ercolani, Taylor Buller

Replacements all used : Tom Hillman, Ollie Dunn, Stuart Heal

Referee : Nick Heath (Somerset Society)

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Category: 1st XV News, Previews / Reports -XV