Clevedon took the lead with a spectacular try by right wing and leading try scorer Christian Bushell after excellent handling by the Clevedon backs. St Mary's now hit back and applied tremendous pressure on the Clevedon scrum, which could never give a good enough platform and the line out became a lottery. St Mary's had Clevedon penned in their own 22 for practically 20 minutes and due to excellent defending by man of the match Tom O'Rourke and his backs and stout play by the back row, now well led by Chris Page, resulted in Mary's only kicking a penalty goal. St. Mary's led 6-5 at half time.

The second half saw Clevedon gradually creep more into the game and run the ball at every opportunity. The line out with John Pearce and Jeff Durant got better and Neil O'Rourke as ever, controlled things at the base. Owen Biggins was outstanding in attack and defence.

Both sides started to make mistakes and at times panic set in but Clevedon kept plugging away. They were rewarded and took the lead with a rare Mike Lowis penalty. St. Mary's strength in mid-field was snubbed out by Tim Brooks and young Tom Thie and the tackling of Chris Cates was immense. The final ten minutes showed the mettle of players like Nick Hill, Tony Dauncey and Neil Tucker with replacement Alan Dunn just dogging it. James SHopland was a live wire around the field and when the final whistle went, it was relief all round and reward for a great season. It was simply a fantastic team effort in the final.

Match day photos can be found here

John Higman takes a few more photos but he's not happy with the quality. He's still getting to grips with his new toy. However, he did manage to get a great sequence leading up to the only try of the match.

They can be found here

Back to 1st XV fixtures