National Two South

Old Elthamians 31 Taunton Titans 38

WITH six yellow cards and 11 tries this was a game full of incidents and an entertaining one right to the final whistle, writes Keith Brooking.

With five of the cards down as foul play you would have thought it was an ill-tempered game, but it wasn’t, it was a game played in good spirits with some excellent tries and some end to end rugby.

The Titans got off to the perfect start with a converted try after just four minutes. The try was scored by Paul Davis after several phases of play on the Old Elthamians try line. Full back Gary Kingdom converted.

Ten minutes later, the Titans scored a second when Nick Mason carried on his try scoring form, stepping the last defender to go in under the posts, Kingdom added the extras.

Taunton kept the pressure on the home side and scored two more tries to make the score 0-28 within the first 20 minutes.

The first was scored by Dan Frost, who had an excellent game once again, running the try in from distance.

This was where the first yellow card was shown to the OE’s fly-half for a late challenge. The second was scored by prop Jake Woolmore who ran a great support line to finish off a fine move. Kingdom added the conversion on both tries.

On the half hour, the hosts went over for their first points for a converted try. This was after both number fours were sent to the bin for some hand bags on the floor.

With both teams back to the full 15 for the start of the second half, it was Taunton that put the pressure on Old Elthamians from the kick off and after a great lineout drive, second row Duncan Hales emerged from the bottom of the pile to make the score 7-33.

The home side then had their best spell, scoring two tries in a minute to make the score 17-33 with 25 minutes still to play.

However OE’s pressed the self-destruct button when their second row received a second yellow card and therefore a red for a ruck offence.

However the Titans then joined them on 14 when winger Freddie Fraser was yellow carded for a tackle offence.

The Titans scored a sixth try and Hales second after another driving maul try.

Taunton know from their Worthing game that teams reduced to 14 players can do amazing things, and so this proved as OE’s scored two more tries while Fraser was off the pitch to bring the score to 31-38 with five minutes to go.

The home side had one more throw of the dice and as they were making their way up field, Frost was yellow carded for a ruck offence.

With one last throw of the dice, OE’s took a tap and went for the line, but gave a penalty away of their own and the Titans kicked it into touch to claim the win and enjoy the post-match celebrations of a long hard season on their way home.

Taunton Titans; 15 Kingdom, 14 Struminski, 13 Brown, 12 Mason, 11 Fraser, 10 East, 9 Massy-Birch, 8 Fleming (Capt), 7 Frost, 6 Davis, 5 Hales, 4 Harvey, 3 Caulfield, 2 Gatford, 1 Woolmore

Taunton Titans

Tries: Davis 4, Mason 13, Frost 17, Woolmore 20, Hales 48, 66)

Conversion: Kingdom 4, 13, 17, 20

Yellow Card: Harvey 29, Fraser 63, Frost 80

HT: 7 - 28

Referee: Louis Caviglia