Nailsea & Backwell II's 12 - 17 Clevedon II's
The weather was always going to play a major part in this top of the table clash. Within the last week the sporadic rainfall has made what was a firm pitch rather wet and spongy hence not a day for pretty rugby.
From the off, the big Clevedon pack came down the hill at a pace but the N&B defence held strong. Clevedon virtually camped in the N&B 22 for the first ten minutes but strong tackling led by the returning Louis Wait kept the score at nil - nil.
Soon after, Ben Morris was shown a yellow card being the next infringer after the referees warning, however again N&B contained the Clevedon barrage.
Finally the deadlock was broken! Against the run of play, Darren Chidzey turned over ruck ball allowing Sam Bigley to break blind. After beating the covering defence, Bigley drew the last defender to send Ben Cleave clear to score the try which was converted by Bigley.
With the half nearly over, N&B strung a few phases together and from a scrum close in Scott Farrer broke away to set up good field position. Cory Love was able to offload to Bigley who ran a sublime line only to be tackled just short of the try line. However, quick thinking by Leo Delazzari allowed him to pick up and drive over from close range to give N&B a 12 - 0 lead at the break.
The second half was much the same with Clevedon keeping the ball away from N&B which stifled the flowing rugby the Ravens have been playing this season. Frustratingly, the little possession N&B did have seemed to be easily lost through loose play when the game should have been closed out.
With 20 minutes remaining Clevedon finally got over the N&B line only for Adam Weavers to hold the ball up. Unfortunately, from the ensuing scrum Clevedon scored out wide adding the conversion. Although N&B battled hard Clevedon maintained control of the ball and with time running out scored a further converted try to take the lead for the first time.
With the clock almost up N&B gave away a further penalty which Clevedon converted for a 17-12 win to go top of the League.
N&B must keep faith as the defence was solid all afternoon against a big team who commanded territory. However, with the Ravens now three points off the top of the table, the lads need to re-gather and get back to winning ways.
Man of the match on his return from injury was Louis Wait with further strong performances in defence from Ben Morris and Jack Charman.
