Western Counties North

Matson 47

Drybrook 12

DRYBROOK suffered another heavy defeat, but still enjoyed lots of possession and should have made more of the chances that came their way.

Unfortunately, their hard work was undone by some poor decision-making and bad organisation in defence.

Matson had all the pressure in the opening spell, despite playing up the slope, and went into the lead with a penalty on five minutes.

They broke through some weak tackling minutes later for their first try.

Drybrook got into the game and put together some impressive phases of play, stretching the home defence one way, then the other. Eventually, second-row Liam Jackson crashed over for a try.

Matson increased their lead with a catch-and-drive try from a line-out, but Drybrook twice went close to scoring.

Both Ashley Howells and Danny Griffiths were denied scores by the unsighted referee.

Persistence finally paid off when Simon Rugman was bundled over near the posts for a try that Tom Treherne convered.

Drybrook lost stand-off Chris Rawlings to the sin-bin for an offside decision and Matson kept up the pressure to run in a try from deep – although there were two suspicious forward passes in the move.

Turning around 25-12 up, Matson added two more tries with Drybrook still down to 14 men.

A big score looked on the cards, but Drybrook rallied and had lots of pressure near the home line.

Somehow, Matson kept them out. They broke Drybrook's hearts with a length-of-the-field try that also resulted in an injury to Drybrook winger Sam Peaper.

Having used all of their subs Drybrook had to play the last 15 minutes with 14 men, but they bravely made a game of it.

Matson had the last word though, scoring from the last play of the game after Drybrook had tried to run the ball out of defence.

Drybrook's man of the match was back-row Dean Large, who took the game to Matson at every opportunity. Mitch Bourne and Simon Rugman were also prominent.

Drybrook: Tom Treherne, Sam Peaper, Dan Cox, Simon Rugman, Dan Large, Chris Rawlings, Danny Griffiths, Tony Yemm, Ashley Howells, Steve Virgo, Ben Warren, Liam Jackson, Mitch Bourne, Dean Large, Lee Ward (capt). Reps: Tony Paull, Mitch Browning, Tony Suter.