Wellington RFC 20 – Bridgwater and Albion RFC 11

Wellington RFC 20 – Bridgwater and Albion RFC 11

In a repeat of last season’s opening league fixture, Bridgwater and Albion RFC were beaten by Wellington.  In a game that they could so easily have won, when the two sides met at the Athletic Ground on Saturday afternoon.

The hosts kicked off into a wind that increased as the game wore on.  Within a minute were awarded a penalty, which was kicked into touch.  From the ensuing line out the ball was bundled over the line by Liam Phillips ,which Alex Davey converted.

Penalty in front of the posts for Bridgwater and Albion RFC

Albion responded quickly.  On five minutes, a good break down the right was made by Nick Parry.  This eventually led to a penalty in front of the posts.  Stuart Heal then slotted home. The visitors were then awarded a second penalty after 12 minutes.  Again, Heal duly kicked making the score 7-6.

A period of even play followed during which both sides had opportunities.  On the half hour mark Jay Owens picked up the ball on the left and ran 25 metres to the line for an unconverted try.  This gave Albion the lead.

Wellington RFC replied with attacks

Wellington replied with a number of attacks all of which the Albion defence cleared. Tensions were running high in the match.  Just before the interval this spilled over and a number of players from both sides were involved in a fracas.  This was duly sorted by the referee who spoke to both captains.

Almost from the restart on 43 minutes Danny Lee the Wellington captain crashed over on the right to put his side in front 12-11 at the break.

By the time that the second half begun the wind had increased quite dramatically which Wellington exploited to the full.

Defence from Albion held strong

The home side started the second half strongly and took full advantage of the conditions.  The strengthening wind creating considerable pressure which the Albion defence coped well with.

On 65 minutes Wellington were awarded a long distance penalty which Davey kicked which made the score 15-11.

The hosts kept coming forward but on each occasion the threat was cleared until just before full time Vinny Gordon went over for an unconverted try in the left hand corner.

Bridgwater and Albion RFC battled on

Bridgwater countered forcefully and spent the dying minutes close to the Wellington line, but all to no avail as the referee blew his whistle to bring an end to a bruising encounter.

Afterwards Geoff Sluman the Albion director of rugby said: “Whilst not disputing Wellington deserved their win we were somewhat disappointed with the way things went as we felt we could and should have done a bit better.

“That said, and accepting you always want to win, we need to put the result into perspective. We have not had much pre season match activity with just a single joint training session with Winscombe RFC that finished with a 30 minute game.”

He went on: “The match against Wellington looked like we were a little ring rusty. We had a slow start and conceded a try in the first couple of minutes. We then played long spells with some good rugby and then conceded a try with the last play of the game. The players will learn from that and we know what to do to improve.”

Sluman added: “We have a Friday night game next week away to Chard RFC so will not have long to wait to test our improvements.”

The match at Chard, who drew 10-10 away at Wadebridge Camels on Saturday kicks off at 7.30pm.

Bridgwater and Albion RFC Team

1 Michael Saunders,2 Sam Adcock, 3 Cam Modley, 4 Tom Hopkins, 5 Bryan Webb, 6 Karolis Urbonis, 7 George Sluman (Captain), 8 Taylor Buller (vice-captain), 9 Roger Drabble, 10 Stu Heal (vice-captain), 11 Thomas Croal, 12 Jay Owens, 13 Lewis Plece, 14 Nick Parry and 15 Danny Mahoney.

Replacements all used- 16 Graham Slorance,17 Tom West and 18 Will Kerry.

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Category: 1st XV News