Saints promotion hopes were finally extinguished as they went down to a narrow defeat, in a game they were leading with just over 3 minutes remaining. St Austell can be pleased with their first season in the Devon and Cornwall league and with three games remaining only need one more win to finish as the top Cornish side in this league.

On a boggy pitch running rugby was difficult and Saints resorted to kicking for territory with good chasing gaining ground but when they got into the attacking third of the field gave up possession too easily and so the game remained scoreless for the first 20 minutes. Exeter Saracens slowly began to get into the game and scored the first try when the ball was spread to the wing the visiting defence looked to have things covered, but a missed tackle wide out allowed winger darren Light to squeeze over in the corner to put Sarries 5-0 up. St Austell narrowed the gap on the half hour with an Andy Ashwin penalty after a home defender failed to roll away from the tackle but a penalty from home winger Brian Logan kept his team in front 8-3 at the break.

Saints had the wind behind them in the second half and had a lot of territory, but good home defence kept them from crossing the line although they went close on a couple of occasions, they had to rely on two more Ashwin penalties to take the lead 9-8, they kept this until the last few minutes when Saints conceded a five yard scrum, after holding the drive from the scrum the ball was moved to winger Logan who crossed wide out. Saints had one more chance to win the game when they were awarded a free kick in the Sarries 22 but the ball was spilled and with it St Austell's chances and the final scoreline was 13-9 in Sarries favour.

Next Saturday St Austell are taking a coach full of players and supporters to Wellington for the league game and then staying overnight before going onto Bath for a training session with the Bath coaching team and two first team players after winning a competition sponsored by Gatorade in which skipper Adam Kellow was named Junior Player of the Month.

Steve Smith
Ryan Pill
D Phillips
Jeremy Grigg
Sean Haley
Jack Grigg
Rob Jeffs
Adam Kellow
Matt Shepherd
Andy Ashwin
Meshak Esien
S Howorth
Tate Richardson
Tom Crapp
Ian Venner

J Gibbons, L Jones and A Pearce