Hornets consolidated second place in South West 1 with a victory over North Petherton.

NORTH PETHERTON 15 pts

HORNETS 34 pts

HORNETS visited one of their promotion-chasing rivals and came away having confirmed their credentials as a real force for be reckoned with.

North Petherton kicked off and appeared to lose concentration following an injury to their hooker after less than a minute of play.

Hornets took full advantage when the game restarted. They forced play back into the North Petherton 22 and Kade Dillon secured an early turnover at the breakdown. The penalty was kicked to the corner where the forwards secured good line-out ball and drove towards the opposition line.

As the drive ground to a halt, the ball was released to the backs, Jack Gadd burst through the defensive line and with the line at his mercy offloaded to brother Joe to touch down. Jones completed the conversion for a 7-0 lead.

From the restart, Hornets again won turnover ball, Dillon released a quick pass to Kent who offloaded to Cornish. This time Cornish broke the early tackles and slipped the ball outside to Jones.

Jones in turn offloaded in the tackle to Jack Gadd who used his explosive pace to canter over from the 22. This time touching down himself for a 12-0 lead.

North Petherton now clawed their way back into the game. They demonstrated their strength in the rolling maul and Chase having to infringe to stop the maul and was given a yellow card for his efforts.

Petheron slotted the penalty, but were unable to add further points while Hornets were down to 14 men.

Hornets scored next when the ball was released to the backs and Letherby gave two dummy passes before spinning the ball wide to Cornish, who glided though a gap in the defence to score. Jones added the conversion for 19-3.

With seconds to go to half-time, Hornets were awarded a penalty which Jones kicked for a 22-3 half time lead.

Inevitably North Petherton came back at Hornets in the early exchanges of the second half and scored a try. Hornets responded immediately when good work by Disney, Carter and Cornish, set Jones free to touch down.

Despite the healthy lead, Hornets were still under pressure and North Petherton were now playing their best rugby of the match and scored another try.

Just when the match was turning against them, Hornets were able to change up a gear and forced Petherton back and Cornish intercepted a pass and crashed over for his second try of the afternoon.

This was a great afternoon’s work from Hornets, which consolidated second place in the league.

More of the same will be needed on Saturday when promotion favourites St Austell visit The Nest. Only a win will be good enough if Hornets are going to keep pace with the other top teams.

South West 1 West top five

W D L Pts

Cleve 13 0 3 63

Hornets 13 0 3 61

St Austell 12 1 2 60

North Petherton 11 0 4 53

Camborne 10 1 4 52