Hornets were knocked out of the Somerset Cup by North Petherton.

HORNETS had a break from league action this week and travelled to meet North Petherton in the Somerset Cup.

With several players, the coach and physio held up in the aftermath of Friday’s horrific accident on the M5, Hornets were forced to honour the 2pm kick-off and ended up playing in Petherton’s change strip.

However, this did not stop a young Hornets side putting up a good fight against their more experienced hosts. With three players, James Collings, Josh Hallett-Fairhurst and Dan Tolson all making debuts and a further two making their first appearances of the season, it was an experimental line-up that made the trip.

In the early exchanges, things were fairly evenly matched with Petherton taking the lead with a penalty that was levelled when Sam Lloyd-Jones added a successful penalty for Hornets.

Unfortunately, Hornets lost Ross Cheeseborough after only eight minutes following a clash of heads in the tackle, but having reshuffled the side with the introduction of Matt Parker, Hornets continued to battle.

Their luck didn’t improve when they found themselves a man down after 20 minutes when Ben Cox saw yellow.

North Petherton took the upper hand at this point and with two penalty goals also took the lead and in the final minutes of the half scored the first try of the game, which was converted to give a half-time score of 16-3.

The second half was much the same with Hornets fighting for possession and territory, but invariably losing out to a well-drilled home side. The hosts kicked two early penalties before Hornets’ hooker, Sean Kent crossed for his fifth try of the season.

North Petherton proved to be stronger in the end though and scored two late tries, both converted to make the final score 33-8 and sees them through to the next round of the cup.