In a game of 2 halves Cullomptons makeshift team made up of a mix of 1st and 2nd team players, and a hooker who hadn’t played there since age group rugby lost to Wellington in the Papa Johns Cup. In a first half where we gave a way too many penalties and couldn’t secure our set piece ball Cullompton were very quickly 22 – 0 down. At this point many fans could be forgiven for thinking we were in for a long afternoon. However, the boys picked themselves up and decided what the hell and went for it. Some good play forced Wellington back into their own half for the last 10 minutes of the first half and the pressure finally told with Tom Bradner going over with a couple of minutes of the half left for an unconverted try. Half time was 22 – 5.

The second half Wellington started quickly with a try under the posts for 27-5. Cullompton went back to work and running good hard lines were putting the opposition under pressure. Wellington started getting niggly and in an incident where one of the Wellington players punched Sean Strange on the ground. Sean got up and took Umbridge to this and there was some pushing and shoving. The result was a yellow card to each player. Cully responded to this better than Wellington with first Andrew ‘Badger’ Hayball and then Jack Grandfield going over for tries converted by Luke Shergold in the space of 5 minutes. Wellington got a penalty shortly after to make the score 30-19.

The last 20 minutes was hard fought by both teams with Cullompton having the edge and Rob Luxon getting an unconverted try to bring the score to 30-24. Cullompton pushed hard for the winning score and had some very good opportunities but ultimately fell short in what was a very enjoyable game of rugby.

The boys can be proud of the performance they put in. Onwards and upwards next year.