Tribute South West One West

Clevedon 26, North Petherton 24

NORTH PETHERTON threw away a 15- point half-time lead to go down at Clevedon on Saturday and severely dent their promotion hopes.

Pethy took a 24-9 lead into the halftime break and had already secured a bonus point thanks to tries from Aaron Gibbs, Miles McNeillie, Chad Lowrie and Damien Grafton.

But the second half was a very different story, as Pethy failed to score a point and a rejuvenated Clevedon side fought back to snatch victory with a try in the 75th minute.

It was the home side who opened the scoring as centre Mike Taylor slotted a fifth-minute penalty from 30 metres.

But Pethy hit back almost immediately with a try from number eight Aaron Gibbs, as he latched on to a neat offload to run in unopposed.

McNeillie was next on the scoresheet after breaking a number of weak tackles to crash over the line, before another Taylor penalty chipped away at the visitors’ lead.

Chad Lowrie added a third Pethy try when he picked a strong line to power his way over from close range – and, when Griffiths finished a free flowing move in the right-hand corner, the game looked to be all but over.

But Clevedon had other ideas and Taylor added a third penalty shortly before the break to keep them in the hunt.

Two sin-binnings in the North Petherton pack early in the second-half gave Clevedon the impetus they required – and number eight Dave Rawle registered their first try of the afternoon when he latched on to a welltimed inside pass from scrum-half George Towers to crash over from close range.

Taylor added the extras, before home full-back Tom Thie ghosted through a gap in the Pethy defence to put Taylor over in the corner.

With five minutes left on the clock, Thie regathered his own grubber kick to slide over in the corner and put Clevedon into the lead for the first time in the match.

Jervis Manupenu’s late drop-goal attempt came up short of the posts in the dying seconds and Clevedon scrambled the ball out of play to condemn North Petherton to their seventh defeat of the season.

# Petherton host lowly Coney Hill this Saturday (ko 2.30pm) as they look to remain in the play-off hunt.