Tribute South West One West

North Petherton 27, Clevedon 21

NORTH Petherton captain Damian Griffin was pleased with his side’s fightback as they came from 13-0 down to beat Clevedon 27-21 at Beggars Brook on Saturday, writes Simon Freeman.

Pethy scored three second half tries courtesy of Sam Williams, Harry Roberts and the captain, who was pleased to come away with four points from a close contested game.

He said: “It was a typical game of two halves – they played the rugby in the first half and we won the second half.

“Things came together a bit slower than we hoped, so we had to be patient against a good side.

“Our defence was a big factor – they got around us a couple of times to score, but on the plus side nothing came through the middle.”

Clevedon made an impressive start and pinned Pethy back in their own half, but the home side typically defended with spirit, and last ditch tackling from Miles McNeillie, Pete Dickens and Carl Brown prevented the visitors from crossing over.

Pethy looked like they had cleared their lines until Clevedon worked hard to exert pressure and score a converted try through winger Justin Morton.

The visitors wisely varied their game to keep the Pethy defence moving around and continued causing difficulties at the breakdown.

When Pethy managed to move the ball they shifted it wide and made ground, but were just unable to keep the momentum going.

The middle part of the half belonged to Clevedon, who held the upper hand with only strong defence shutting them out on a regular basis.

The visitors extended their lead with two penalties to increase the score to 13-0, but as the first half entered its last five minutes Pethy found some momentum and stretched the visitors for the first time with strong breaks from Arron Gibbs, Jack Kohler, Mike Stevens and Brown.

This pushed Pethy to within five yards of the line, and Williams bounced off a couple of tacklers to reach over.

The second half saw reversed fortunes as Pethy began determined and immediately put the visitors under pressure.

Harry Auten, playing in the centre, began to find space for himself and for others, taking Pethy within striking distance.

Pethy closed the lead to 13-10 with a Roberts penalty, and the majority of the play remained in the Clevedon half.

With a monopoly on possession, Pethy began to force plays which resulted in missed opportunities, but they remained composed and after good work from forwards Auten and Chad Lowrie the ball was moved to Griffin, who darted over to fire Pethy into the lead, Roberts converting.

Now playing with confidence, Pethy began to offload and make ground around the breakdown, which again forced Clevedon on to the back foot, conceding another penalty for Roberts to extend the lead to 20-13, but the visitors responded, skilfully working their way out of defence with Mike Taylor closing the gap with another penalty.

The game remained in the balance with both teams playing cautiously until the ball was moved sharply among the Pethy backs before Hancock released Roberts to dive over in the corner – he also converted to make the score 27-16.

In typical fashion Clevedon refused to fold and added a late try through Jon Haliburton, but Pethy took the win.