Hornets maintain unbeaten record

HORNETS travelled to Whitchurch this week to take on St Bernadettes Old Boys and were looking to maintain their unbeaten record before a break from league rugby next weekend.

They left Whitchurch with a seventh bonus point and an eight point lead at the top of Tribute Somerset Premier.

Although the score would suggest that Hornets had things all their own way, this was not the case as the spectators were subjected to an error strewn game which was littered with stoppages and poor passages of play from both sides.

Hornets had to wait 13 minutes before the deadlock was broken. Bernadettes had cleared their lines with a kick deep into Hornets 22. It was collected by Sam Lloyd-Jones who threw a huge pass across the pitch to Adam Vaughan, he popped the ball to Bobby Hewlett for him to round the home defence and run in from 50 metres for a try under the posts. The conversion from Lloyd-Jones was successful.

It was another 13 minutes before the next score which fell to Bernadettes, thanks to some sloppy defending by the visitors, the opposition hooker ghosted over to score. The conversion was missed and Hornets hung on to a narrow two point lead.

Another 10 minutes of stop start rugby followed before Hornets finally started to control the ball and stamp their authority on the fixture. Jamie Biddle secured quick ball from a ruck 10 metres out and he passed for full-back Stu Vinnicombe to cross in the corner for his seventh try in as many games.

Two minutes later and Hornets were back on the attack having been awarded a penalty for handling on the floor. They opted to kick at goal, but the attempt went wide and from the resulting 22 drop-out, the ball was gathered by John Ferguson, he offloaded to Adam Vaughan who ran in the third try, again Lloyd-Jones added the extras.

Olly Sheppard finished off another fine attacking move for the fourth try to earn the bonus point. Lloyd-Jones added his third conversion to give a half-time score of 5-26.

The second half got underway and fly-half Harry Simmons made his way into the hosts 22, looking he found Vaughan outside him who crossed for his second try, Lloyd-Jones added the extras.

The following 20 minutes saw some mediocre play which was punctuated by mistakes as Bernadettes went about trying to stifle the game. This pattern of play led to Bernadettes scoring their second try with an interception.

Hornets replaced Jamie Biddle, Sean Kent and Matt Parker with Neil Chenoweth, Marc Preston and debutant Ross Cheeseborough and it was 10 minutes before Hornets got back to their rhythm. The visitors were awarded a penalty five metres out, this was taken quickly and two passes later Phil Hogarth crashed over for a try, with Lloyd-Jones converting.

Deep into injury time, Vaughan fought his way to the line to complete his hat-trick. Again Lloyd-Jones scored the conversion for a final score of 47-10.

There is a break in league rugby in favour of the Somerset Vase next week, where Hornets are home to Tor. The game is being played on Sunday with a 2pm kick-off.

Clevedon 2nd XV 52 pts

Hornets 2nd XV 12 pts

The Seconds were reliant on new players after a couple of late cry offs, but a fairly strong team took to the field and welcomed back Sean Toman from a long lay off and James Cox from fatherly duties.

The game started well with both teams getting the chance to score and at half-time the score was 14-7 to Clevedon.

The second half saw Hornets lacking the strength and depth to keep up the work rate needed to keep Clevedon at bay and the tries started to go in.

To their credit, Hornets kept fighting till the end but missed too many chances. Thanks go to Dave Jones, Geddes, Dave Martin jnr, Sam Baker, Steve Hill, Chas, Howie Evans, Andy the wing and all the other players for making the game possible.