Report by Brian Stenson THE third string faced a tough home game against league leaders Weston Hornets, and were not helped with a number of players being away, injured or unable to play.

Hornets turned up full of confidence having beaten Bridgwater the week before by 39 points.

True to form, Weston went ahead early with some good offloading and quick hands allowing them to score under the posts.

North Petherton were three tries down and 25 minutes into the game when it dawned on them that they could actually compete with Hornets and put a number of good phases, only to be held up short by an aggressive Hornets defence.

Having coughed up the ball on a number of occasions where Hornets open side flanker ruled the breakdown, Hornets scored a fourth try before half time to give a score of 24-0.

With three changes at half time, North Petherton started brightly and applied pressure on the Hornets' try line with a number of lineouts on the five-metre line, but they did not turn the pressure into points.

The Hornets' defence was aggressive and their counter attacking was made to look sublime by a number of missed tackles. Weston scored a further three tries bringing the final score to 41-0.

This was a poor performance by North Petherton but, if it was not for the performance from Salter, Betty and Kingston, the result would have been much worse.