Teignmouth leave it late at Coney Hill

SOUTH WEST ONE

Tom Gosling kicked a penalty late in the second half to earn Teignmouth an 8-7 win at Coney Hill.

The game was seldom easy on the eye as dreadful weather, stern defence by both sides and the gullibility of a young referee all played a part.

There were outbreaks of rugby – mainly from the forwards – but back play was limited by trying to handle a ball as slippery as a bar of soap.

Teignmouth went 5-0 up when Alex Ford brushed off a couple of tackles and dashed over from 30 metres.

The Gloucester side were

7-5 up by half time, and there they stayed until well past halfway. The game degenerated into a glorified arm-wrestle, typified by a 15-minute period which was merely a cycle of penalty-to-line-out-to-scrum-to-penalty. When Coney Hill infringed once too often at a scrum, Gosling kicked the three pointer. The last quarter saw Teignmouth constantly knocking on the door, only to find the homeowners had secured it. It was not pretty, but head coach Colin Aldworth could live wit that.

“This was a day when the result was far more important than the means used to achieve it,” said Aldworth.

“There will be far more exhilarating days to remind everyone why so much blood, sweat and tears have been spilt in the past four years to reach this level. Hopefully this Saturday’s home match against Keynsham will be one of them.”