Taunton Warriors 45 Wells 10

Taunton kicked off into the Wells 22, they fielded the ball and ran at the Taunton defence, something they did for the next10 minutes, denying the Warriors of any possession at all.  With all of this possession Wells were unable to get out of their own half, such was the tenacity of the Warriors defence.  The Warriors first piece of possession came from winning a lineout on the Wells 22.  From here they were able to maul the ball over the line for their first try which was not converted but gave them a 5-point lead.  This was a huge milestone for any Taunton team as it brought up the 1000-points for the season so far with 5 games still to go.  From the re-start the Warriors managed to put some phases together and showed their ability to get over the gain line.  On 22-minutes a half break by Ben Alvis who passed on to our President Gary Kingdom saw his use his power and sidestep to go over for the try giving the Warriors a 10-pointlead.  Wells were always willing to run at and test the Warriors defence.  Just 4-minutes later and the Warriors other centre Henry Webb was on hand to break through and sprint over for the try which when converted by Ben Alvis gave the Warriors a seventeen-point lead.  Wells continued to try and attack and seemed to gain an overlap but, James Brown stayed with his opposite wing pulling off a superb tackle from which the ever-present Brodie Sheach was on hand to turn over the ball from which Joe Elsworth was able to support and race away for the fourth and bonus point try.  Wells kicked off for the re-start and the ball did not make the 10-metre mark with everyone standing watching, Oli Schuster-Wood, the Warriors prop picked up and from within his own half raced through like an Exocet Missile, to completely out pace the defence to score under the posts.  With just three-minutes of the first half remaining Gary mesmerised the Wells defence to go in under the posts for the sixth try of the afternoon and to give the Warriors a 38-points to nil Halftime lead.

The Warriors gave their bench some game time shortly after the start of the second half and Koupangou Kauejao, who we all call Pangy, made his presence felt with a breakthrough and a bid for the line only to be brought down inches short. This allowed Wells to clear their lines.  It took 15-minutes of the second half for the Warriors to get on the scoresheet again with Broadie Sheach, who must have covered most of the pitch supporting and tackling to be able to be on the end of a pass where he raced away under the Wells posts for a converted try.  The Warriors then lost Ollie Brown with an injury, and this brought Alex Spurdle into the centre with there-shuffle.  The Warriors were winning ball, Oliver Wrelton was taking ball in the Wells lineouts, Sam “pine tree” Knott turned over several balls in the loose, but a combination of determined tackling by Wells and penalties being conceded by the Warriors  seemed to move the game into a period of stalemate until with 15 minutes left Wells went in for a try followed very quickly with a second giving them 10-points.  The Warriors were then reduced from 14 men with a yellow card being awarded against the Warriors, they held out for the last 10-minutes of the game to gain a well fought hard win.

Those ten-points against took the Warriors total points against for the season to 188, this is an average of 11-points per game which demonstrates that not only can the team entertain with tries they can also defend their own line.  They now have two more home games in consecutive weeks.  Next week will be the challenge of Imperial from Bristol, followed by Huish Tigers on the16th of March.  The kick off time for both, at the moment, is 2.30pm so next week you could all come and support the Warriors for the 30 minutes before the Titans kick off.

‍