National Two South

Taunton Titans 21 Old Albanian 26

TAUNTON Titans came up just short of defeating their promotion-chasing opponents, in an action-packed and entertaining clash at Hyde Park on Saturday, writes Keith Brooking.

The Titans made a perfect start and in the opening minute, a charge down of a James Shanahan kick ended up bouncing for Taunton to claim.

A great break by back row Ratu Vakalutukali, who ran half the length, saw him brought down just short of the line – and after a quick breakdown, the ball was shipped out for fly half Joe Simmonds to sneak over in the corner. A touch line conversion from full back Gary Kingdom opened up a 7-0 lead.

A few minutes later and Old Albanian’s first attack into the Titans territory ended with a penalty kick for centre Chris May, before home centre Nick Mason crossed for a well taken try, showing pace and power to run in from the 10 metre line after a neat delayed inside pass by Simmonds.

The conversion was missed and it was then the turn of the visitors to pile on the pressure, as they had their best spell of the game.

A second penalty for May soon became a third after Titans centre Freddie Fraser was, with some saying harshly, sent to the sin-bin for an offside offence.

Albanian made the extra man pay and scored two tries before the Titans were back to 15.

The first try was scored by hooker Matt Miles after a great driving maul and the second by flanker Billy Johnson giving the visitors an 11-point lead ending the half 12-21.

Once again the Titans started well with Kingdom kicking three successive penalties in 10 minutes to tie the game 21-21 with 30 minutes remaining.

Old Albanian then got themselves back into the lead with another well worked driving maul, with Miles once again the try scorer.

The game then moved from end to end, but mistakes when tries were on offer prevented any further score.

Titans head coach Tony Yapp was full of praise for his team, despite seeing them slip to a fourth defeat in five weeks.

Yapp said: “I am really proud of the players, we asked them to front up and to a man they did that.

“It was always going to be difficult against a good Old Albanian team with the amount of key personnel missing, but the players that took the pitch certainly did the team proud.

“We spoke during the week about how we wanted to play and the players stuck to that game plan.

“We got a lot of width and tempo into our game and fronted up well against a dangerous attacking team.

“It was a mark of how well we played that we felt a little frustrated that we didn’t get more out of the game.”

Taunton Titans; 15 Kingdom, 14 Struminski, 13 Mason, 12 Fraser, 11 Massy-Birch, 10 Simmonds, 9 Webb, 8 Fleming (Capt), 7 Vakalutukali, 6 Frost (Edwards 26 – 34), 5 Harvey (Turner 34), 4 Persey, 3 Claydon (Caulfield 50), 2 Gatford, 1 Chase (Cooper 56) Reps not used; Heal