Dominant first-half performance sets up another good victory

15/11/08 - Tribute Somerset Premier: North Petherton 21 v 8 Winscombe

Report by Kyle Prescott

On yet another wet and sticky weekend at Beggars Brook, the North Petherton 1st XV ran out in front a large crowd, which included the clubs sponsors. Pethy still missing influential second row James Lees still due to illness, powerhouse Mike Coles gains another start for the 1st XV. In the changing rooms before the game all the players got themselves revved up with no where else to go but on the pitch.

Petherton played down the slight slope in the first half, and Tom Williams started the game with a beautifully lofted kick, which the Petherton forwards where able to put pressure upon the Winscombe forwards, which the resulted in a knock in, which the referee deemed in Winscombe's favour. After a few Winscombe phases they were stripped of the ball, and it was Petherton’s turn to put together a some phases, after a few phases from the forwards, the ball was moved wide at a rapid pace, and was given to Chris Burge who came onto the ball like a bat out of hell, and with plenty of work still to do, powered through tackles from his opposite number and a last ditch tackle from the Winscombe No. 15 to score right in the corner. Tom Williams unable to replicate his kick from the previous week, and missed the extra points by just a yard from the post.

From the restart Petherton’s forwards began to trundle there way up the pitch, after a break through the centre from Matt Foad, Petherton earned themselves a penalty, from Winscombe players not entering the ruck in the correct manor. The duties were given to Tom Williams for a simple penalty conversion for 3 points.

Petherton gathered the restart and began to play some more magical rugby, and looked to score another try if it hadn’t been an unfortunate knock from the ever more masculine Sam Williams. After yet another turn over by the ever impressing Simon Gingell Petherton began to play the style of rugby with suits them best, an open flowing game, which then landed them another 3 points thanks to the right boot of Tom Williams. Petherton’s very own Man of Steel, Matt Brown took the restart and went on a typical bullocking run, which was supported by a few other forwards, who latched on to Brown, and drove him on, to the cheers of ‘Keep Driving’ by the Petherton home crowd. From this forward movement Neil Lennox got some clean ball which he shipped out to Lloyd Williams, who created some magic to put Rob Havill through a gap to only to be tackled by the opposition full back who did some great work to turn the ball over to Winscombe, who then gave it to their now under pressure Fly Half, who scrambled a kick away, only as far as the covering Lloyd Williams, who went on yet another one his now famous darting runs beating numerous players, and ended up facing the Winscombe full back, but was able to off load to Rob Havill, who was keen to make up for the previous turn over, and he headed for the Promised Land underneath the posts. Tom Williams added the extras.

Petherton did not take the restart very well on this occasion and Winscombe were awarded the scrum from a knock on. This was Winscombe’s best spell of the first half, they put together quite a few phases, and played some nice rugby, but some more great work by the back row combination on Ben Tarr and Mike Taylor, made sure nothing got through, and eventually turned the ball over once again. The Petherton backs now full of confidence decided to run the ball instead of kicking, which took Winscombe by surprise and they made it within 30 yards of Winscombe try line before a penalty was rewarded to Petherton for a Winscombe player killing the ball. Tom Williams once again added the 3 points to take Petherton into half time with a healthy lead of 21-0.

The second half was a very different story, with the ref seeming to taking a everything is permitted attitude, Winscombe had obviously decided they weren’t going to beat Petherton playing rugby, so they decided to start disrupting Petherton from playing rugby any way they could. Petherton should have not let this disrupt them, but when this continued it was understandable that what was a good game of rugby was going to deteriorate fast. Some of the Winscombe players now carrying bad attitudes towards the Petherton players, and things turned ugly. First the very relaxed but powerful Harley Brown was sin binned for the first time in his long long career, for an apparent late tackle, which no-one else seemed to have seen, including the Winscombe players and fans, as they were as baffled as the Beggars Brook regulars. This then unfortunately made things worse, as the forever young Mike Taylor was obviously studded in the head, and blood was pouring from it, Mike Coles was about to took the law into his own hands in the mist of another large dispute, and then paid the price as the Ref gave him a red card although the ref missed the original sin, again another first time for the otherwise gentle giant. Shortly after this Matt Angel was given a yellow card after his illegal use of the boot, so the now fallen Angel spent 10 minutes in the sin bin, yet a Winscombe player had not received so much as warning for their use of boots continually, now Pethy were down to 12 for a brief time.

This allowed Winscombe back in the game, with a well struck penalty by their No.13. Petherton’s pack now down to 6, struggled in the scrums for the last 5 mins, and a last minute try by Winscombe looked to be offside, although the ref did not seem to see this, and awarded the try. This was how the game ended, with North Petherton taking the victory at 21-8, and moving into joint 2nd in the table just 1 point behind leaders Burnham on Sea.

The every influential and inform flanker Mike Taylor after the match said it was a good game to play but was ruined in the last 3rd by the off the ball action, which resulted in Taylor getting stitches to the head after a stamping. He when on to say despite only playing at 70% the Pethy boys managed yet another league win! The backs looked dangerous whenever they were allowed some space, Mike Coles was a work horse around the pack, and generally the forwards got the job done, especially in defence.

Tries: C.Burge, Havill

Cons: T.Williams

Pens: T.Williams (3)

Drop Goals:

Team: 15. T.Williams, 14. C.Burge, 13. Havill, 12. Foad (Rep. R.Williams, 65), 11. Archer, 10. L.Williams, 9. Lennox, 1. Prescott (Rep. Angel, 50), 2. S.Williams, 3. H.Brown, 4. Gingell, 5. Coles, 6. Tarr (Rep. Robinson, 55), 7. Taylor, 8. M.Brown.