Hornets run in eight tries at Keynsham during their 51-26 victory.

Keynsham 26 pts

Hornets 51 pts

HORNETS’ first away game of the season saw them travel to Keynsham, who along with Chard were the only team to beat Hornets home and away last season.

The visitors were forced to make changes through injury and unavailability plus a warm-up injury to prop Grimes.

In front of a large crowd, Keynsham took the game to Hornets but the Hornets pack soon took control. Good interplay between forwards and backs saw the ball recycled quickly for prop Gould to crash over from short range. Jones added the conversion for Hornets to go 7-0 up.

Six minutes later, quick thinking by their No 9 saw him scoot over for a converted try. Hornets regained the lead after a line-out on halfway saw the ball reach wing Vinnicombe to score out wide.

Player coach Chase was next to score with an easy ride at the base of a driving maul from a line-out on the Keynsham 22. Jones added the extras. Full-back Bradley was next on the score sheet when he hit the gap at pace.

Jones saw his kick bounce back of the post, but added a penalty on half-time for an interval score of 7-27 to the visitors.

From the restart, a set move from a line-out saw captain Kent join his front row compatriots Gould and Chase on the score sheet with a simple try after five minutes. Jones missed the kick but was back on form to convert Bradley’s second try of the afternoon four minutes later.

Owens showed the Keynsham defence a clean pair of heels as the ball was worked across the field for a debut try with 20 minutes of the half remaining. An injury to Griffiths saw him replaced by Nettleton and Leatherby returned for the injured Collings at scrum-half.

Keynsham took advantage of the reshuffle with a converted try in the corner. Jones found the gap to go under the posts for Hornets’ eighth th try of the day adding the extras himself to notch up 15 points on the day.

Keynsham had the last say with the winger and the No 9 getting tries in the final 10 minutes for a bonus point.

Matson visit the nest next week for what should be another good game.

The seconds enjoyed a comfortable 87-0 victory over Midsomer North thirds.

With the referee unable to attend, the day did not look promising. Thanks go to Courtney Harris, who stepped in last minute to referee.

From the kick-off, Hornets showed their dominance. The first try went to J Toman and after some hard running by J Ferguson, M Sheridan and J Hallett, Hornets took control.

Tries came from J Lawrence, J Mounsden, S Edwards, with B Ashfield and M Sheridan scoring two tries each and Lawrence converted two. This gave a half-time lead of 44-0 to Hornets.

Changes at the break saw the introduction of R Hedges for D Whitford, R Hawkes for A Graves, J Keating for J Kingman, J Richardson for J Ferguson and J Cox for J Mounsden.

From the restart, good running from Richardson saw him cross the line which he converted. Good play from K Gardner saw him cross the line and Sheridan crossed for another two tries, all converted by Richardson.

Further tries came from Kingman, M Vaughn and J Partridge with the final conversion being taken by Hedges.

Hornets 3rds travelled to Wells 3rds in their opening Somerset III South fixture, returning with a 49-7 defeat.

Hornets started well as the forwards, in particular Ben Briffitt and Jules Raynor putting their the Wells pack on the back foot from the start. The visitors moved the ball wide to allow Des Allen to wriggle over in the corner, the conversion from Rob Owen put Hornets 7-0 up.

The rest of the half was littered by mistakes from Hornets as Wells capitalised to score three converted tries to lead 21-7 at the break.

The second half mirrored that of the first with Hornets attacking for the first 20 minutes of the second half. Despite a particularly good 50 metre break from Lee Hutchinson, Hornets were unable to capitalise. Unfortunately, Hornets fell away in the last 20 minutes as Wells scored a further four converted tries.