Tribute South West One (West): Bridgwater and Albion 15-30 Wellington

BRIDGWATER and Albion finished their league season in the same way that they started,  being defeated by Wellington at College Way on Saturday, in front of a large crowd swollen by the 120 guests who attended a Friends Lunch beforehand.

This match marked the 150th first team appearance for Roger Drabble and the 75th for Jay Owens and was a much improved performance from the the previous weekend and once again the hosts fought hard throughout and were only finally beaten in the last few minutes.

Bridgwater started strongly and in the fifth minute Graham Slorance gave the hosts the lead when he went over for a try that Tom Steer converted. The Albion came straight back from the re-start but in the end the chance came to nothing.

Wellington then started to get their act together and on quarter of an hour their forwards push drove 15 metres before hooker Philips went over for an unconverted try.

The next passage of play was evenly contested but on 30 minutes Wellington gained a line out deep in Bridgwater territory from which Kittow drove over to put the visitors into the lead.

Once again Bridgwater came straight back and five minutes later Steer levelled the scores when he slotted home a 40 metre penalty.

Shortly afterwards Wellington attacked up the right but a speculative pass was seized upon by Will Monro, making only his third appearance of the season, who ran 50 metres to score a try.

On the stroke of half time Wellington came back and following Taylor Buller being shown a yellow card they chose to take a scrum from which Brewer went over for a try which Davey converted making the score 15-17 at the interval.

The opening 10 minutes of the second half was very even but on 52 minutes Wellington were awarded a penalty which Davey kicked from 35 metres, not long after which he kicked another to make the score 15-23.

At this stage of the game Wellington were very much in control, but despite this the hosts kept on coming back and looking to get back into contention although their cause was not helped when replacement Rory Hobbs was yellow carded.

The hosts were under pressure but managed to clear their lines well. With two minutes to go however the Wellington centre Hodgson put the match out of reach when he scored a try that Davey converted to make the final score 15-30.

This game brought the curtain down on what has been a very long and tough league season for Bridgwater and Albion, whose players to their credit have remained competitive throughout.

Hopefully the nucleus of Saturday’s team will remain with the Albion for next season and that being the case they will be a force to be reckoned with in Western Counties (West) in 2023-24.