Bridgwater Development XV 12, Brixham Crusaders 24 (From Bridgwater Mercury)

Bridgwater Development XV 12, Brixham Crusaders 24

4:30pm Sunday 22nd August 2010 in

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Bridgwater and Albion’s fledgling Development XV took to the pitch with a warm up game against Brixham’s second XV as a curtain raiser before the first team game, also against Brixham.

A bright opening twenty minutes saw Bridgwater control most aspects of play and were unlucky not to be on the score sheet when Ed Driver crashed over from short range, only for the referee to judge that he had been held up over the line.

As the half wore on, the visitors’ physical advantage started to take its toll on the young Bridgwater side and despite spirited resistance they shipped three tries in ten minutes just prior to half time.

Twice the Brixham winger crossed with Bridgwater simply running out of defenders and, on the stroke of half time, a further score under the posts gave the scoreline a rather lopsided look of 17-0 to the visitors.

The second half saw the introduction of a bit more experience into the Bridgwater ranks as they made wholesale changes to ensure the whole squad got some valuable game time.

A bulked up front row containing Dave Norman, Phil Triggol and Scott Woolford may have lost Bridgwater a yard of pace around the field but it certainly contributed to a greater stability in the contact areas, and with Roger Drabble causing the Brixham defenders a few problems around the fringes, the game settled into a good even contest.

Some determined forward drives finally brought about Bridgwater’s opening score when after several tap penalties and lines out Norman put himself onto the edge of a maul to crash over from 12 inches.

Brixham responded with a try of their own after their bustling full back had made significant ground through the Bridgwater defence. But the final say belonged to Bridgwater and Jeremy Darley capped his debut appearance for Bridgwater with a close in try after good linking play between forwards and backs had pinned Brixham into their own 22.

The conversion by Stuart Heal rounded off an encouraging performance from a side who were playing their first game together after minimal preparation.

The opposition, by contrast contained several players with first team experience and were fresh from winning the Devon 2nd XV Merit table last season