Taunton 29 Plymouth Albion 24

Ratu Vakalutukali led the team out as captain on his 150^th appearance for Taunton Titans and his motivation gave the players a real belief in themselves. From the kick off Taunton really attacked the Plymouth line who in that first five minutes gave away four penalties.  It was on the fourth penalty that Sam Leworthy caught the ball, something he did in the line all afternoon, and from the lineout Taunton drove at the Plymouth line, the ball came back and first receiver Elvis Taione used his power and pace to drive through for the try. The lead did not last long, and Taunton were punished by a well worked and thought out catch and drive, where the ball caught at the back of the line was passed to the front to level the scores.  The game then ebbed and flowed with both teams having opportunities with finally Plymouth gaining the upper hand to go in front with their second try of the afternoon.  It was not long after Greg Kitson coming into the line took a superb pass to completely outpace the opposition and level the scores.  Frankie added the conversion and Taunton were in front.  Plymouth came back and just after the half-hour of the game their scrum half Tom Putt went in for the try which he converted.  With just 3 minutes of the half left “man of the match” Luke Bralsford drove through and with the ball coming back to big second row Sam Leworthy who went in the for the try which was converted to give Taunton a halftime lead.

Plymouth kicked off for the second half, catching the ball from the kick off and breaking towards the Taunton line, a superb tackle back by Luke brought the invader down just short of the line.  It was then we probably had the turning point in the game and a demonstration how this group of players were not going to lose this game.  Plymouth battered the Taunton line and as they crossed for what seemed a most certain try, Sam (pine tree) Knott turned the player, got underneath him and held him up.  Taunton dropped out from behind the goal line and back came Plymouth with a similar battering of the line, this time when they crossed it was Isaac (sniffer) Dalton who got his body underneath and held the player up. Such was the tenacity of the defence.  So, Taunton gradually relieved their line and as the twenty minutes of the second half came there was still no scores.  Taunton were dominating the scrums as they had done all the game, Plymouth were dangerous in the loose.  The stalemate was broken when Taunton wing Noah Fenton went in for his nineteenth try of the season to increase the Taunton lead.  The optimism was now very high until with just 8 minutes left former Taunton Player Hallam Chapman scored, and Tom Putt converted to level the scores.  This may have been a fair result, but Taunton pressed and with the ball coming back to Dan Martin he kicked to cries from the crowd “don’t kick the bloody ball away”.  This kick proved to be the winner for Taunton as Dan had seen how Noah had positioned himself and with the weight, direction and accuracy of the kick Noah Fenton was able to race onto the ball and score yet another try for Taunton.  Press as they may, Plymouth could not break down that Taunton defence, leaving Taunton with a well-deserved win.

The celebrations after the game were well deserved with “Toots” receiving a bottle for his efforts and Luke a bottle for his.  What was kept very quiet was that it was also Chris Brown’s birthday and he managed to sneak away before this was made public.  We should also remember that on the Motorway Pitch the young Warriors were also playing against Yatton and scored 18 tries all of which were converted by Louis Sinclair.  Their next game is against Hornets on January 6^th and this is an important game where they will really need our support.  This game is likely to determine whether they have promotion or not so please speak to each other and make that short journey to Weston to give the players of the future with some of our more experienced players your support.  If they can go up and play that higher level so it will be more beneficial for the Titans as playing between the two teams will be more seamless.

Mike Amos