Western Counties West

St Ives 39, Burnham-on-Sea 5

BURNHAM travelled to Cornwall along with their faithful supporters only to be taught a harsh lesson by a well-organised side with an admirable home record,which they continued to maintain.

Suffice to say, Burnham managed to concede five tries in the first half without once entering the opposition 22 with ball in hand, while they also lost Matt Love with a broken finger.

Burnham performed considerably better in the second half and got themselves off the mark when Otti powered over from seven metres out, but they shipped two more tries to go down to a heavy defeat.

Burnham must now aim to lose the monkey on their back about away games.

With six games to go, three at home and three away, they must utilise their potential in the home matches and try to garnish as many points as possible in the away games to maintain their status in Western Counties.

Just four points separate the bottom four, with Crediton’s win over Tiverton adding spice to the battle to avoid the drop.

Somerset Two South

Burnham 2nd XV 12, Morganians 26

THE sun brought out a good crowd to cheer on the home team as they attempted to defeat unbeaten table-toppers Morganians.

Burnham came out of the starting blocks quickly, applying early pressure to take them deep into the Morgs 22m line.

Morgs held resolute and, against the run of play, intercepted a pass to run in a seven point try.

The home side battled their way back into it with some strong running by forwards Ben Stacey and Nick McKen, and it was full back Alex Watkins who bagged a brace of tries and converted one out of two to take the score to 12 – 16 at half time.

From here on in Morgs had their tails up and their marauding forwards began to turn the screw but it was their backs, led by the Tongan Elisi Vunipola, who ran some great lines and scored the points.

Burnham never gave up and found great field positions out wide with the help of centres Scott Havercroft and Tom Chaffey, but the final pass or a fumble denied them points.

A thoroughly entertaining and intense encounter backed up with the comment by the high-flying visitors that it was the hardest game they had played in all season.

Burnham 2s have this weekend off, with their next match taking place away at Martock on Saturday, March 4 (ko 2.30pm).