Weston Rugby Club played their last game before being relegated to Regional 2 for next season, and it was against a strong Luctonians side who had been challenging for the title all season.
It was also both club legend Sam Coles and Kiwi centre Bradley McPate’s last games, the club hopes to re-sign the latter in the future, but Coles is hanging up his boots for good after a long career for Weston.
The game started evenly and both teams made several promising moves forward to start the match, but when Weston threw a speculative pass that was intercepted in the Barnstaple twenty-two, allowing scrum-half Ross Swales to gallop away for the opening try, which full-back Tyler Gordon-Oke converted four minutes in.
The game then went back and forth with the two teams trading defensive kicks from deep in their respective halves, and both squads had attacks stopped just short of the tryline that resulted in unneeded penalties.
In the 30th Weston got their first breakthrough, a superb try when a run by hooker Gary Carpenter and drive by Kiwi flanker Jay Davis led to fly-half George Nuttycombe releasing right wing Joe Burgess, who stood his opponent up before going round the outside to dive to score in the corner.
Nuttycombe hit the post with the conversion attempt, and no further score was added in the first period of play, the half-time whistle being blown with the visitors leading 7-5.
With the wind at their backs, Weston began the second half on the attack, and the visitor's fly-half, Jordan Petherbridge, was given a yellow card. Weston elected to scrum near the visitors' line, and their persistent battering led to Carpenter powering his way over the line in the 45th minute.
That gave Weston the lead for the first time and Nuttycombe provided the extras, but it didn’t last long, and the 12 points would be all the Seasiders could produce for the rest of the game.
The visitors replied to Weston taking the lead just nine minutes later, Barnstaple piling on the pressure allowed Ross Swales to get a well taken try on the right wing, levelling the game at 12-12.
Barnstaple were looking for a win though and upped the tempo yet again, eventually breaking through with replacement Cameron Johnson out wide for their third try and hooker Nat Bayet took advantage of a tiring Weston back line to score their bonus point try and end the match 12-22 to Barnstaple.
Weston put on a valiant effort in a long season but end the campaign at the foot of the table with four wins from 22 outings.
They will now be relegated to the Regional 2 South West league for next season where they will be facing off against local teams like North Petherton, Wellington and, Burnham-on-Sea.
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