Seasiders almost lose out due to ill-discipline

WESTON 34 ptsREDINGENSIANS 30 ptsWITH the final quarter beckoning, Weston were in complete control. They had scored four tries without reply, resulting in a deserved advantage of 22 points, but what happened next was almost unbelievable.They had always been in the red regarding the penalty count, but this was increased dramatically as the visitors were allowed back into the match.Yards of ground were lost as the Seasiders continually got on the wrong side of referee Dino Mattern and at the end, the word fingernails came into the vocabulary loud and clear.But Weston had started well. After James Mackay and Spike Chandler had exchanged penalties, the hosts then produced a superb 90-metre try. Daryl Sanft's break started the move which ended when Sean Bennett came away from a maul to hand the try to Kevin Hobbs.Mackay converted and seven minutes later his clever fly-kick along the right touchline resulted in an attacking line-out from which Ashley Russell produced the goods for David Burge's try. Mackay again converted for 17-6, Chandler having kicked his second penalty.The visitors were soon in further trouble when Phil Trott and Warren Milne were yellow carded and Weston took full advantage with a pushover try by Ross Bennett. Mackay's third conversion followed for an interval lead of 24-6.The visitors came back briefly with Chandler's penalty, but Weston looked safe and sound when the under-used Paul Sprague went looking for work which he found when he touched down at the posts from his intelligent grubber kick.By this time, Mackay had been singled out for punishment and sent to the bin for general team indiscretions and Sanft deputised with the conversion to take the score to 31-9, but thereafter Weston were in reverse.Continually penalised, the hosts conceded tries to Jeremy Flynn and Rob Stapely, both converted by Chandler and in the 80th minute, referee Maddern lost patience and awarded Redingensians a penalty try as well as yellow carding Dan Fry.Chandler's easy conversion brought the score to 31-30, but in the sixth minute of stoppage time the penalty count was reduced to 18-5 and Mackay maintained his 100 per cent record with his second such score.Weston: C Crichton; K Middlemiss, D Sanft (M Armstrong 70), S Bennett (M Armstrong 32-45), P Sprague; J Mackay (sinbin 54), R Bennett; D Price, D Burge (capt), S Williams (J Gallagher 70), M Kempton, A Russell, E Smith, K Hobbs, D Fry (sinbin 80).BOTH Weston and Walcot Old Boys wanted their postponed Somerset Cup quarter-final match to be played on Saturday, February 28, as neither club had a fixture on that date.However, the county's competition committee rejected this reasonable request and have instructed the match be played at the Recreation Ground on Tuesday (24th) with a 7.45pm kick-off.Somerton 12 ptsWeston Utd 122 ptsWESTON'S second string kept their impressive league campaign on max with this hammering of plucky Somerton who actually crossed the Weston line twice in the first half before getting overrun by the pace and handling of the visitors.Weston opened the scoring on four minutes when Chris Young chipped to the corner for Steve Walker to pounce.A line-out near the Somerton line resulted in James Reid feeding Young to cross. Eddy Saunders then stole a ball before feeding Dave Steel to go in under the posts for the first of his two tries. Weston then scored at regular intervals including some great finishing by James Arnold who went over for four. Other scorers were Tom Main together with Matt Burns and Reid who each bagged a brace. And there were further tries by captain Tom Wheatley and Dave Cook on his return from a long injury lay off. Replacements George Wright and Chris Heath also crossed and Young scored one try and kicked 16 conversions.