Winscombe take on Weston-super-Mare in Regional 2 contest

At the weekend the Winscombe 1st XV together with impressive support travelled the short distance to face Regional 2 Tribute South West league leaders, Weston-super-Mare, writes John Podpadec.

Weston are this year celebrating 150 years of rugby at the club but have never faced their North Somerset neighbours in a first team fixture. 

Winscombe started brightly and appeared to catch their hosts, who have enjoyed a runaway start to the season, off guard.

Following an early onslaught towards the Weston try line second row Tom Hawkins picked up at the base of a ruck and powered over for the opening try which was converted by centre Sam Dearsley to give the visitors the lead. Weston’s response was swift, from the restart they soon regained possession and good hands down their backline saw them go in for a converted try beneath the posts to level the scores.

Winscombe’s set piece variety has been much improved this season and a line out inside the home 22 afforded them the ideal opportunity to work a short throw down the left touchline. Lock Aled Corcoran collected the ball and feed scrum half Lewis Podpadec who broke through to put flanker Aaron Thompson into space, his try returning the lead to the visitors. But as the match moved to half-time Weston again broke through for a converted try putting them 14-12 up at the break.

With the wind at their backs Weston-super-Mare dominated the early part of the second half, firstly intercepting to race in for a converted try beneath the posts then scoring a well worked bonus point try to move into a commanding lead. But Winscombe kept their heads and gradually came back into the game, narrowly missing out on getting an impressive result.

In the final quarter the visitors dominated the scrum set-piece and used this as a platform to gain penalty advantage and field position on a number of occasions. From one of the resulting line-outs some powerful drives to the line resulted in centre Jermaine Jones reaching over the top of a ruck and grounding the ball for a try. Soon after an attacking scrum 10 metres out gave Winscombe the ideal opportunity for a blind side move down the right touchline with No8 Ewan Griffith picking up at the base and feeding Podpadec who went in for the bonus point try in the corner. 

Weston gave themselves a small cushion with a rare penalty kick to goal but with 10 minutes remaining a single score separated the two teams and the match was on a knife-edge. Winscombe, needing a converted try for a draw, set up camp inside the home 22 and launched a series of attacks but a stubborn Weston defence kept them at bay. This thoroughly entertaining match, played out in front of the largest crowd of the season, came to an end with Weston emerging narrowly as winners.

After a short break, Winscombe entertain Wadebridge Camels at Longfield in two weeks time in what promises to be another tough encounter.