St Mary's 43 Clevedon 14
Counties 2 Championship Cup Round 1
10th September 2025
Clevedon once again fielded a couple of last year's colts for their debuts. Centre Eesan Hussain and hooker Oliver White joined two of their old colts team mates, who had enjoyed their debuts two games previously. Ethan Thomas returned after more than a year out with injury and ended up going the full eighty.
The bench also featured Fergus Cole who was returning from his year long layoff and Brian Largenton who hasn't played since last season.
The rainfall just before kickoff suited Clevedon's gnarly old pack, because they scored within the first 5 minutes from a lineout catch and drive to go 0-7 up.
"Here we go then" thought the travelling supporters, which was a wee bit premature to say the least!
That was the only decent lineout Clevedon won all game. At subsequent lineouts, Mary's chucked someone up every time to steal the ball, allowing their dangerous backline to practice their moves.
However, if Mary's were hoping to use their scrums to start their attacks, they were in for a surprise. Clevedon's pack was so dominant that Mary's had to resort to uncontested scrums in the second half. Prop injuries and yellow cards, sustained as a result of Clevedon's brutal scrummaging hindered the away side, but helped the home side.
Despite their pack superiority, Clevedon could not prevent the speedy and skilful Mary's backs from running riot, even from their chaotic scrums.
The Mary's scrum half and number eight combined well, in the circumstances, to extract the ball from their fast retreating scrums. Consequently, the Mary's backs had plenty of scoring opportunities, handling the ball well with Clevedon's woeful defence aiding and abetting them.
It wasn't supposed to be like this!
St Mary's Old Boys deserved this win and move on to the next round. Good luck to them.There are no senior games scheduled for next weekend.