On arrival North Petherton knew it was a must-win game to keep promotion alive. With the long grass, narrow pitch, strong crosswind and rain intervals, it was never going to be a free-flowing game for the neutral, but a good old-fashioned slog. These conditions seemed to favour the home side whose strength is up front where they used the driving maul to good effect all afternoon, but rarely threatened the Pethy line. They also made the scrum hard work for Pethy to get clean possession, which combined with the lottery in the lineouts, mainly due to the weather, resulting in Pethy never getting good possession from set plays.

Pethy tried to keep playing in the poor conditions with some good off-loads by all and link-up play between the back-row, but more often than not would break down with a knock-on or spillage in the contact area. Also the constant stream of infringement by both sides made it a stop start game. The home side quickly got to terms with the ref first and was able to slow or steal a good proportion of the Pethy ball.

First points went to Petherton on the half-hour mark. Following some good running by both forwards and backs, most notably a typically powerful run from Andy Agar, Petherton were stopped inches from the line. If Pethy were to get quick ball a try was certain, however Crewkerne's number 6 was sin-binned for deliberately killing the ball and consequently the ref awarded a penalty try, 0-7. Pethy applied more pressure at the end of the half but failed to add to the tally, as a couple Tom Williams penalty kicks went wide. Just before the half time whistle a card was eventually shown, the home teams centre was binned for off side at the ruck, which came after a long string of similar offences.

The second half continued in much the same vain, with lots of scrapping for the ball on the floor and very little action outside the No.10 channel. Crewkerne made their way into the Pethy twenty two via a couple of silly penalties, and but for a huge tackle by lock Mike Coles, resulting in a turnover, they may have scored. At this point centre Matt Foad took a knock to the head, and had to be replaced by Russ Williams. Due to the nature of the game, Russ’s straight and powerful runnings was ideal at this point of the game, but due to lack of possession were unable to make full use of him.

Whilst in the Pethy half Crewkerne did get on the score sheet with a 30m penalty kick awarded for entering the ruck from the side, 3-7. This seemed to spark Pethy back into action, and not long after the restart Pethy formed a driving maul from a line-out, 20 meters later and the ball was released to fly-half Lloyd Williams, who dummied and then jinked through a couple defenders before drawing the full-back and releasing leading try-scorer Rob Havill for an un-converted score, 3-12.

Pethy sat on this cushion until the game drew to a close, and were happy with the win in the circumstances, taking pleasure in not conceding a try. Everyone battle hard in the conditions. Andy Agar received man of the man for Pethy from the home team, he and Keith Robinson tackled everything all afternoon, the backs were solid in defence and tried hard to run moves, but ended up keeping things very basic to the frustration of all.

Promotion is still in Petherton’s hands, but they have to win both difficult remaining fixtures.

H/T: 0-7

Tries: Penalty Try, Havill

Cons: T.Williams

Pens:

Drop Goals:

Team: 15. T.Williams, 14. B.Williams (Rep. Ladd, 60), 13. Havill, 12. Foad (Rep. R.Williams, 65), 11. Archer, 10. L.Williams, 9. Rybaruk, 1. H.Brown, 2. Glanville, 3. Kingston, 4. Coles, 5. Gingell, 6. Agar, 7. Robinson (Rep. C.Burge, 70), 8. M.Brown.