Seconds mount great second half comeback

22/11/08 - Friendly Match: Winscombe XV 16 v 22 North Petherton II

Report by from the Bridgwater Mercury

Pethy Seconds travelled to Winscombe for this friendly with the strongest line up for some time even though they had to borrow a hooker.

They had a lot of strength - both young and old. Even with this Pethy started on the back foot with the Winscombe number ten pinning Pethy back with his boot.

After a scrum for a knock on Pethy were 7-0 down through some poor tackling. Within another 10 minutes the score was 13-0 with two penalties being given for killing the ball and backchat to the referee.

From the restart Pethy got their act together and started playing some attractive rugby which the large Winscombe crowd were loving and were rewarded with a try from a lineout drive in the corner with Gavin "beefcake" Wolfe coming up with the ball - the conversion was missed making the score 13-5.

From the restart Winscombe had another penalty for backchat which was slotted over to make the halftime score 16-5.

With some harsh words from inspirational skipper for the day James Lees Pethy came straight out the blocks in the second half with some great running rugby and were quick to score from a training ground move.

Lees, Rybaruck, Sutherland-earl and debutant Owen were all involved before Irish dived over in the corner to score his first ever try - again the conversion was missed, 16-10.

With Pethy now dominating the game and running everything another debut player Graig Goodwin made a break from just inside the Winscombe half and at pace beat three covering Winscombe players to score under the posts, and this time the conversion was good from Irish and Pethy now had the lead for the first time.

With scrums in the game uncontested, Pethy’s number 3s had plenty of clean ball to play with - man mountain Luke Williams punching big holes in the Winscombe defence and the back row able to get in behind - it wasn’t long before Pethy were in the home 22 again and good ball retention and quick hands saw Rybaruck snipe his way over in the corner and the difficult conversion hit the bar from Lees.

The whole back line played well especially the debut boys and the pack were outstanding in the loose with Dan Rood and Ben Green showing some good skills with the ball in hand.

Pethy can take lots of good points from the game with most of the players being able to push the first team if encouraged.