A LARGE crowd saw Wiveliscombe beat Wellington 2nds 28-15 in the Somerset 1 league at the Athletic Ground yesterday.

This was a typically stern encounter between the clubs in which no quarter was asked for or given.

Both sides needed the win. The visitors to retain hopes of promotion and Wellington to pull further away from the opposite end of the table.

The early encounters went the home side’s way as their pack strove to get on top and they did a good job getting into dangerous positions.

This pressure paid off when they went ahead with wing Konrad Breese going over in the corner for an unconverted try.

The visitors were inevitably stung into action and they began to exert pressure to combat the forward duel.

That pressure turned into several penalties, one of which was slotted over by the excellent boot of George Rowe after 28 minutes.

They continued to come forward but were unable to make further progress until a booming kick from defence was sent down the left.

The cruel bounce on the hard pitch completely wrong footed the last defender and fell kindly for centre Tom Chaffey to more or less stroll home from the half-way line for a five pointer to give them a narrow lead at the break.

Another Rowe penalty shortly after the re-start advanced their cause and they really took hold of the match when wing Dan Twose finished a sharp move with Rowe converting.

There came the best of the tries of the day when Chaffey set off on a weaving run following a line out on the visitors 22.

He simply outstripped the Wellington defence as he swerved and side-stepped his way to the line showing his great pace.

The re-start was similarly picked up and another try resulted following a kick over the top which Jacob Eyres latched onto.

He was equally incisive in his execution of attack to put the visitor’s in a seemingly impregnable lead.

Wellington were not about to make things easy for them however and the home forwards set about re-establishing their presence with No7 Micky Norman putting in more than a shift.

Norman eventually reduced the arrears when he finished off a rolling maul with a try.

It was the same player who picked up at the base of a scrum to feed club captain Tim Jenkinson.

Jenkinson, appearing for the seconds because he was unable to travel, gave the final pass of the game to Breese who went over for his second try.