Below par seasiders suffer defeat

IN what was a below-par performance, Weston were beaten by four tries to one at the Recreation Ground last Saturday.

It was their third consecutive defeat and they have now slipped to eighth place in National 3 South West.

The visitors were always ahead from the fifth minute when fly-half Matt Gilbert kicked a penalty. Weston retaliated with a break by centre Sylvan Edwards, but a knock-on spoiled the chance, one of many handling errors during the afternoon.

James Mackay was obviously still suffering from the leg injury which had kept him on the sidelines since November 9. He failed with a penalty attempt in the eighth minute and all the kicking duties were passed to Chris Young.

Flanker Danny Samuels increased Amersham’s advantage with a try and Weston just about held out until the interval at 0-8.

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But they started the second half brightly and reduced the deficit with a splendid try by Sam Smee. The centre ran in from 40 metres and although Young’s conversion attempt was wide, the hosts were back in the match, but not for long. A driving maul from the visitors’ pack resulted in a try for full-back Chris Jack.

Weston then cam back strongly and camped near the Amersham line for almost 20 minutes during which time lock Gielens was yellow carded.

But the Buckinghamshire club weathered the storm and as the penalty count against the hosts increased, they attacked again and scored twice in the final minutes.

In the 74th minute Gilbert’s penalty attempt struck a post, but Weston were unable to hold the rebound and wing Sam Portland scored from the resultant scrum. Then wing Tim Lloyd touched down their bonus point try to finish things off.

Weston: C Young, T Bellak, S Smee, S Edwards, M Watkins, J Mackay, D Lomax, D Price, C Withers, D Swann (c), S Hudson, D Bufton, G Sparks, P Morrissey, C Webber. Replacements used: S Donegan, S Eaton, R Bennett.

In the midst of a match which the Seasiders will want to forget, there were some notable individual efforts.

Chris Webber at No 8 had his best performance for the club and he was ably backed up by his back row colleagues George Sparks and Paul Morrissey, and Matt Watkins had a good all-round performance on the left wing.

They journey to Barnstaple on Saturday for the final match before the Christmas break and they will be hoping that injuries to Mackay, Smee, Young and skipper Swann will not prevent them from travelling.