This was a strange afternoon of rugby for Avon. Their scheduled opponents Crewkerne were only able to raise 11 players but admirably still made the 55 mile journey up to Bath to fulfil the fixture. Although Avon 2nds were also at home and had spare players, they weren’t able to lend any to Crewkerne to play the league fixture due to the registration restrictions. So the match was officially classified as a “home walkover” with Avon being awarded 5 points, which takes them up to 4th place in Somerset Premier.

However, the match was able to go ahead as a friendly 12-a-side game with 30 minute halves with Avon taking the opportunity to rest a few players who had slight injuries and loaning Josh Hiscott to their opponents. But, although Avon won the friendly match by 62 points to 10, these weren’t added to the league table points for/against and tries statistics since the score line was officially recorded as 0-0. The important thing though was that both sets of players had a run out after 4 weeks without a game so full credit to the coaches, referee and players for enabling it to take place.

For the first quarter, the game was nip and tuck with Avon holding a narrow 12-10 lead after tries from Iain Parris and Xander Davis were cancelled out by 2 softly conceded tries to Crewkerne as Avon were guilty of taking too relaxed an approach. Tightening up mentally, the tries started to flow as Avon’s attacks were rewarded with further tries from Jake Coates, Dan Griffin and Rob Fitch to take a comfortable 31-10 lead at half time.

The scoring blitz continued after the interval as Ben May and Tom Boreham added 2 more tries shortly after the restart. Crewkerne stuck to their task and enjoyed a few promising attacks but were kept out by committed Avon defence. After skipper Kane Book sold a spectacular dummy and surged 40 metres upfield, Xander Davis then completed his hat-trick whilst Escher le Duc touched down Avon’s 10th try. Rob Fitch slotted 5 conversions and Tom Boreham added another to complete the comfortable win. Prolific Parris meanwhile claimed 6 try assists in a vain attempt to improve his personal stats.

Afterwards, although coach Kai Harwood awarded the Man-of-the-Match to Sam Book, he gave the bottle of bubbly to Crewkerne for their sportsmanship in completing the fixture against the odds.

Meanwhile Avon’s 2nd team enjoyed a 15-7 win against Keynsham 3rds. An eclectic team selection featured a mix of some veterans like 60 year old chairman Ian Monochino-Ayres, Paul Bates, Rich Trott and Mark Kelly, together with former 1st team regulars Scott Book, Ben Hurd, Chaz Meddick and Ben Crane, alongside some youngsters such as Jonny Griffiths, Will Monochino-Ayres and Harry Harwood.

Avon’s tries were scored by winger Tim Wood, skipper Ben Hurd and replacement scrumhalf Adam Stone (the biggest 9 in Bath!) and they are now looking forward to their next match.