St Austell 12 - 3 Crediton

A comfortable yet competitive win over visiting Crediton enabled St Austell to keep second place and still with a six point gap to third placed Hayle, Crediton started the match with the strong wind behind them and all the early exchanges took place mainly in the St Austell half with the visitors opening the scoring with a 10th minute penalty for Centre M Pearce, the Saints were not panicked and repeated attacks by the fluid back line pinned Crediton in their own 22, a try was disallowed for earp the feeding pass judges as forward, over a hundred of the Saints "Massive" begged to disagree, in the 30th minute Wing Alex Welland took the ball almost to the Try line, the ball was received by Flanker Paul Winterbottom and he did exactly what the textbook says, create space, burst through and score. the rest of the half was mainly played in the centre of the pitch with Creditons hooker sin binned for an illegal tackle.

With no replacements made at half time the Saints should have capitalised on the extra man but the strong Crediton pack rumbled it's way toward the saints try line, improved defence and some great clearance kicks kept the pressure off, Saints now with the wind were pinning Crediton in their own half, an injury for the excellent Darren Thompson gave returning from injury No 8 Adam kellow the chance of a run, he instantly took the ball to the opposition and from this extreme pressure James Earp broke through tackles and scored the Saints second and last Try, Matt Shepherd drop kicked the conversion the Saints now 12-3 to the good. Where the Crediton forwards were dominant in the scrum St Austell had every other part of the match sewn up and never looked like conceding more points, they should have had a further try in the closing stages but a controversial touch decision had the Saints Massive in uproar yet again. Alex Welland was awarded man of the match in all a very good win against tough opposition.

Phill Raddenbury
Chairman & 1xv Manager
St Austell RFC

1 Steve Smith, 2 Harvey Morcom, 3, Daniel Hambly 4 Sean Haley, 5 Adam Pearce, 6 Darren Thompson, 7 Paul Winterbottom, 8 Rob Jeffs (C), 9 Matt Shepherd, 10 Matthew Holliday, 11 Craig Taylor, 12 James Earp, 13 Sam Rhodes, 14 Alex Welland, 15 Ian Venner, 16 Jack Hughes, 17 Adam Kellow, 18 G Taylor (not used)

Scrums 10 - 1 against head (21 total)
Lines 13 + 4 against head, 26 in total
Pens for 11, Pens Against 14
Turnovers for 5 against 2