South West One (West)
Clevedon 27, Bridgwater and Albion 35

AFTER the frustrations of last week, Bridgwater & Albion got the second half of their season off to a winning start when they beat Clevedon away on Saturday, writes Richard Walsh.

Bridgwater started the first half playing into a strong wind and the opening exchanges were tightly contested.

After 11 minutes, the visitors were awarded a penalty around the halfway line which fly half Stu Heal kicked to the corner. 

The resulting lineout was flawlessly executed by the Bridgwater forwards, who set up a driving maul, and all eight worked hard to get a good drive with up and coming prop Matt Ranson controlling the ball at the tail to then split off to score the opening try - Heal duly converted a difficult kick.

Clevedon were never going to let Bridgwater have matters their own way during what is considered a local derby and bounced back immediately.

Following some slick handling and good offloads in the tackle, the hosts scored a try under the posts that was converted making the score 7-7 after 15 minutes.

On the half hour mark, Albion were awarded a penalty that Heal slotted over to take the score 7-10, from which point they never lost the lead.

Albion's Brad Talbot soon made a break and offloaded to the returning Rob Gurnett, who ran a very strong line and stepped inside two defenders to score a try under the posts, Heal again converting.

Bridgwater kept applying pressure from the restart and were awarded a penalty just inside the Clevedon half. 

The referee awarded Bridgwater a 10metre advantage for some backchat to him by Clevedon. 

This was repeated for a second and third time, resulting in the Clevedon hooker being shown a yellow card and Heal kicking the penalty over.

If Albion thought play was swinging their way they were given a sharp reminder by the hosts, who rallied from a line out in the Bridgwater 22 to set up a driving maul that was difficult to stop and scored a try that was converted to make the half time score 20-14 to the Albion.

Early in the second half Heal kicked another penalty and, 10 minutes into the second half, Bridgwater scored what is likely to be a contender for their try of the season so far. 

The move started from deep inside the Bridgwater half with captain and open-side flanker Ollie Dunn having a trademark carry and passing to Talbot, who in turn made a very strong run from still inside the Bridgwater half, beating several defenders before passing to blindside flanker Ethan Trebble-Westlake.

The ball was passed to Gurnett, who still had defenders to beat, but he did this with ease out wide before running in under the posts for a score which Heal converted.

With five minutes left to play, Clevedon were awarded a penalty try for Bridgwater to bring the final score to 35-27 in Albion's favour.

Bridgwater & Albion: Matthew Ranson, Sam Adcock, Craig Blyde, Rob Thompson, Arron Kelly, Ethan Trebble-Westlake, Ollie Dunn (Capt), Brad Talbot, Tom Fournier, Stuart Heal, Kyran Devitt, Luke Plummer, Rob Gurnett, Lewis Plece and Will Monro. 
Replacements (all used) Lewis Phillips, George Sluman and Jay Owens.

South West One (West)

Keynsham 31, North Petherton 17

A SLOW start cost North Petherton as they fell to defeat at Keynsham.

Chris Borthwick, Sam Challenger and John Pearce all dotted down for the hosts as they raced into a 21-0 lead after 26 minutes, with Pethy reducing the gap by 12 points by half-time thanks to tries by Arron Gibbs and Adam Wright, one of which was converted by John Gallagher.

Two further tries for the hosts put the result beyond doubt in the second period, with Mike Stephens' late score scant consolation for Pethy.