U17 Bristol Combination Cup Final Winners

Clevedon took the gamble to travel to Nailsea to play this cup final rather than postponing it till the New Year, and that gamble paid of on a blustery Sunday morning.

The Blue and Gold’s made one change from there semi final team with Dave Burns coming in for Joe sanders, this signalled there intent to play a physical game on the sloped pitch.

Playing into the wind first half Clevedon soon decided it wasn’t clever to put the ball in the air, great work from the forwards gained field position and earned penalties, with Hinkley, Davis and Cragg reliable in the line out it was only a matter of time before the pressure paid off. Nailsea infringed thirty yards out and Carpenter made no mistake in kicking to the 22, Clevedon went off the top in a line out and great hands from Carpenter, Taylor and Gadd released Ewing who Crashed through two defenders to open the scoring after 10 minutes.

From the re-start Clevedon knocked on giving the home team great field position, from the scrum Clevedon forced the turn over and seemed to be out of trouble but a fortuitous fly hack beat the Clevedon defence and Nailsea went into the lead with a converted try.

Clevedon bounced back from this set back with great character, Britton, Wain and Giltrow were heavily involved as the forward pack produced phase after phase of great ball, then it was released to the backs and great offloads and more great recycling saw Mike Taylor time his pass to perfection and Jack Gadd finish of 21 phases of play with the try of the match under the posts which Carpenter converted. Pressure straight from the re-start saw another penalty conceded by Nailsea and Carpenter stretched the lead to 15-7, before another Clevedon error saw Nailsea fly half Pearce crash over to make it 15-14 at half time.

The second half saw Clevedon take immediate advantage of the strong wind with Carpenter pinning the home side in there 22, several attempts to drive the line out over failed before Captain Carpenter decide to knock over the penalty to go 4 points clear. Great work in the scrum for Jones, Hinkley and Carpenter saw ball turned over and Davis forced yet another penalty for Carpenter to stretch it to 7 point lead.

A great tackle from Joe Sanders ended Nailsea’s most promising attack in the second half, and a great line out saw Clevedon Drive Nailsea back to there own half, it was here that another turned over scrum saw replacement scrum half Towers kill the game. A great break saw him leave the home fly half for dead before standing the full back up and out sprinting him to the corner to show just why he has made the south west under 16s squad.

With ten minutes to go and with the Blue and Gold’s now dominating the game, Cragg turned over yet another line out and Will Carpenter stretched the gap to 15 point with a well taken drop goal. This was the signal for Clarke, Ward, English, Stackhouse, Hicks and Chesher to enter the fray and they all made an instant impression. The game ended with a deserved consolation try from Ali O’Connor for a Nailsea team that never gave in.

A great team effort from a Clevedon team who stuck to their game plan and played the conditions well, January the 20th sees the start of the Somerset Cup campaign as Clevedon travel to North Petherton.

We would like to thank all the supporters who made the effort to travel to N&B and cheer us on a chilly morning, we really appreciated your efforts.