Tribute South West 1 West

Bridgwater and Albion 15, Drybrook 10

BRIDGWATER & Albion closed the gap on second-placed Ivybridge to six points with a hard-fought victory over Drybrook, writes Tony Pomeroy.

Stuart Heal and Arg Sariarelis crossed for Albion, while Chris Ashwin kicked five points.

The visitors should have taken an early lead but Tim Stevenson missed a simple penalty.

Bridgwater opened the scoring after fifteen minutes when Rob Allen made 30 metres with a powerful run down the right wing, before the ball was recycled left.

It reached Stu Heal who just made to the line in the left hand corner - Chris Ashwin's conversion was wide but a few minutes later he landed a 20 metre penalty to increase the home team's lead.

Bridgwater then lost Matt Hastie to a yellow card for a technical offence in the red zone.

The home side were under tremendous pressure and a great run by visiting skipper, Ben Large was halted by a try-saving tackle from Arg Saliarelis.

The pressure eventually told and Drybrook got their first and only try when prop Craig Clarke, following a series of rucks, crashed over near the posts giving Stevenson an easy conversion.

On the stroke of half time, Ashwin's thought he had kicked a penalty for Bridgwater. One touch judge raised his flag, the other did not, and the referee did not award the kick. Most of the crowd thought the kick was good.

Saliarelis started the second half with an excellent 40 metre break that came to nothing when poor handling caused Bridgwater to lose the ball.

Stevenson missed a 42 metre penalty for the visitors before putting them into the lead with a close range kick.

The match-winning score came after 34 minutes - a period of broken play around halfway when both sides contrived to lose possession looked very scrappy.

With both teams expecting the referee's whistle to end the mayhem, Bridgwater moved the ball left. There was more than a suspicion of a forward pass in movement before the ball reached Saliarelis on the Drybrook 10 metre line.

His powerful run took him through or past many would-be tacklers on his way to scoring under the posts - Ashwin converted easily for a 15-10 lead.

Drybrook threw everything into their final attacks but Bridgwater defended stoutly, aided by a couple of penalties.

With 43 minutes showing on the stop watch, the visitors put together a great move and Stevenson thought he had scored.

He and his team were distraught when the referee awarded Bridgwater a penalty for crossing.

Bridgwater kicked to touch and that signalled the end of the game.

Bridgwater may have won the game and recorded the double over their visitors but it was Drybrook who played the better rugby on the day and probably deserved the points.

Bridgwater will have been happy to win and help skipper Ollie Dunn celebrate his 100th 1st XV appearance but they will not be happy at the manner of the win.

Ivybridge will be smarting from a heavy defeat at Bideford who have now overtaken Camborne, who lost heavily at Thornbury. The sea-siders are now in fourth place, hot on the heels of Bridgwater.