St Austell 42 Bude 22

St Austell 42 - Bude 22

The score line displays a Bonus Point win over North Cornwall Rivals Bude, the Saints climbing the league table but it was not all plain sailing!

St Austell will be happy with their third win over Bude this Season but the visitors battled hard.

After a minutes silence in respect of Clive Jago the teams exploded into acction attacking each others 22's with turnovers and knock-ons galore resulting from the intense competition between the teams. It was Bude who opened the scoring with a penalty in the 10th minute after taking play from their own 22 clearing with a well placed kick to put the Saints under pressure, the penalty converted by centre Dan Pearce.

St Austell replied instantly with a scrum won from a failed restart the ball finding its way to Fly Half Matt Shepherd who after breaking 4 tackles offloaded to Wing Ben Chenoweth who skinned the opposition and finished in style by placing the ball neatly under the posts.

Twelve minutes in with the score now 7-3 St Austell maintained this early advantage from the restart and a series of moves combining the pack and 3/4's enabled Matt Shepherd to gather from a good line out and scythe his way to the line with an excellent conversion in the fifteenth minute. The visitors now rallied and an entertaining match was now being fought in the mid field, St Austells backs creating havoc with Budes forwards returning the favour. Both teams were pressing for the break but, because of the intensity of an open game, infringements were affecting the flow of play. Saints took the chance to further extend their lead with a run from Wing Alex Welland offloading to Matt Shepherd on the half way line ; with Matt Shepherd in this form the only result was yet another converted try, the half time score a comfortable 21-3.

During Half Time Bude must have taken a lashing from their Director of Rugby because they came out ready to take things on. This they did driving the Saints into the home 22, mauls, rucks seemed to have a new intensity and their scrum for a while had the upper hand their first try coming in the 47th minute from turning over a Saints scrum a quick ball to the blind side with a score for Dan Pearce, missing the conversion but now 21-8. Bude were having trouble containing St Austell at the restart, Alex Welland seemed to have acres of space, nicely timed offload to Flanker Paul Winterbottom who fought his way taking the play toward the try line setting Matt Shepherd up to complete his hat trick and again convert the extra 2 points.

At 28-8 Saints now replaced Flanker Dave Swiggs with Sean Haren and Bude really started working the forwards, the result a penalty try converted by Dan Pearce 28-15, Bude continued with this strategy and a few minutes later prop Adam Black emerged from the base of a collapsed maul to edge the scores closer with Pearce converting now 28-22 with 65 minutes gone.

What St Austell haven't done in recent weeks is close a game out but this one they did in great style, the "Massive" support demanding success, Jack Hughes came on for Prop Roy Williams who had stood his ground against the Ex Worcester prop Adam Black in his first senior start for St Austell, a line out deep in Bude territory was cleverly won by Rob Jeffs, and Paul Winterbottom rounded off the move with at least half of the Bude team hanging off of his back, converted by Shepherd, Wing Sam Tank replacing Alex Welland in the 73rd minute. Just 2 minutes later it was Paul Winterbottom again finishing off a fine catch and drive and Shepherd closing the "Windy and Sheps" show off at 45-22 with yet another perfect conversion.

Saints Man of the Match Matt Shepherd showing the form and appetite that earned him 27 points of the 42 scored.

Report by
Phill Raddenbury
Chairman
St Austell RFC