Withycombe v Pirates Amateurs

14-Man Withy Show Their Mettle

Withycombe survived a potential banana skin with a mature performance to take the maximum points against fourth-placed Pirates Amateurs at the weekend

With Phil Sluman and Dave Sims out with bizarre long-term injuries, and a concussion-depleted front row, the visit from Penzance's finest would be a true test of Withycombe's strength in depth. A test that was made no easier thanks to Mike Richards' early indiscipline, sent to the sin bin for being caught punching with just ten minutes gone. The home side would have to prove themselves good at playing with depleted nmbers, and it showed early as the Green & Black took a 3-0 lead through Tom Steer's boot in Richards' absence.

With the home scrum dominant, Pirates found it hard going and fell further behind when the ball squirted out of the back of a backpedalling scrum on their own five metre line, only for John Parkin to pounce and pick up five points. Steer's conversion made it 10-0. The visitors fought their way back into the game but Withycombe would soon be under more pressure; first Andy Matchett was sin binned for being the latest in a string of breakdown offenders, before Connor Gilby was red carded five minutes before the half for throwing a punch in retaliation.

Withycombe made it to the break and to Matchett's reintroduction without the visitors troubling the scoreboard, but there were six minutes that gave the Raleigh Park faithful cause to be concerned as Pirates scored two tries in quick succession to claw their way back to 15-10 with 15 minutes remaining. Withy buckled under and the pressure eventually began to show as the home rolling maul started paying dividends. With both of the Pirates second rows sent to the sin bin for disrupting the maul illegally, the lineout call was a no-brainer; Chris Gibbons scoring the try from the resulting maul. With the game in the bag, Pirates were looking to snag a bonus point but kicked the reversed restart to entirely the wrong person as Andy Matchett stormed 60 metres up the field to score the bonus point try to the cheers of Clubhouse Corner; a fine way to cap his man-of-the-match performance. Withycombe travel to Falmout next week for a tricky fixture before the visit of leaders Saltash to Raleigh Park on the 7th March.

Withycombe: Will Hockin, Andy Matchett (1T, YC, MoM), Tom Counsell, Dave Passmore, Terry Mears, Tom Steer (1T, 1C 1P), John Parkin (1T), Chris Gibbons (1T), Eugene Badenhorst, Liam Cullen, Jon Axon, Tim Wills, Ben Clark, Connor Gilby (RC), Mike Richards (YC). Reps: Max Cooke, Matt Bragg, Jack Pugsley.