It was the Saints’ first ever visit to the Somerset Cathedral City and while they were afforded a warm welcome and great hospitality off the pitch they found their hosts in unforgiving mood on it. Wells used their pacey backs and excellent counter attacking play to ruthlessly exploited the Saints’ lethargic defence. Three of the five tries were scored with the home side moving the ball nearly the length of the field having turned over Saints’ attacks in their own 22.

The away side’s performance was as poor as it was unexpected with neither players nor coaches able to put their fingers on exactly “why” during the post-mortem. The Saints were already missing key players in the pack so their cause was not helped when they lost Rob Jeffs, Sam Rhodes and Ben Chenoweth to injury by half time. The Cornishmen inexplicably strayed away from the defensive structures that had served them so well throughout the season and found in Wells a side willing and able to exploit the gaps. The visitors’ will also feel they missed out on key decisions at vital points in the game as they struggled to come terms with Referee Paul Box’s interpretation of the breakdown and scrum. With Camborne also losing heavily at Thornbury may be last week’s Cornish Derby took more out of the players than anticipated. Whatever the reasons Wells were in no mood to cut the visitors any slack and scored some excellent tries in a fully deserved victory.

Dan Pearce scored the Saints’ sole consolation try on 63 minutes with a trademark sprint to the line. Indeed he had threatened the Wells defence on a few occasions in the first half only to be brought down in full flight by well-timed tap tackles.

Defeat leaves the Saints 6 points behind catching Drybrook and the safety of 4th from bottom with four games to go. The key now is to focus on each game in turn and hope that the Forest of Dean Club slip-up along the way.

The Saints now have to pick themselves up ahead of their third consecutive tricky away trip when they travel to Penryn for the Cornwall County Cup semi-final (KO 2:30pm Saturday 14 march 2015). The Borough may be one league below in the Western Counties West but they are more than capable of causing an upset. For the Saints it is an opportunity to end a difficult season on a high with a third final appearance in four seasons.

Match Stats:
St Austell:
1 Hugh Noott; 2 Miles Davey (Capt.); 3 Mark Martin; 4 Rob Jeffs; 5 Mark Vian; 6 Jordan Duke; 7 Ian Venner; 8 Sam Rhodes; 9 Andy Ashwin; 10 Liam Freeman; 11 James Martin; 12 Callum Wilson; 13 Alex Welland; 14 Ben Chenoweth; 15 Dan Pearce
Reps:
Jack Grigg; Peter Rowe; Darren Pellow

St Austell:
Tries – Dan Pearce (63)
Cons –
Pens –
Drop Goal –

Wells:
Tries – Luke Jenkins (22); Jon Branch (34); Rob Wiseman (41); Jake Knight (52); Stefan Davies (71)
Cons – Aaron Cook (22, 41, 52)
Pens – Aaron Cook (1, 9, 78)
Drop Goal –

Yellow Cards:
St Austell: None
Wells: None

Red Cards:
St Austell: None
Wells: None

Referee: Mr Paul Box (Somerset RRS)

Saints’ Man of the Match: Ian Venner – Another tireless and selfless display from the Saints’ openside. Worked hard to stem the tide and never gave up.