Tor XV Match Reports

Nailsea Backwell 36 - 8 Tor - Sat 17th Sept 2011

This was the 3rd League game for TOR who having won their first game against Winscombe and narrowely lost last week to Minehead, were looking for a further win away to Nailsea and Backwell.

Tor started strongly and soon were running freely, with Tom Harding and Alfie Lee breaking lines. One such break from quickly recycled ball in their 22m linewas quicly fed to James Austwick who trotted over for an unconverted try. This stirred NB into a sustained attack which worked its way deep into TOR’s half with well retained ball eventually fed to their right wing for an unconverted try. Nailsea stuck with this tactic prior to which deprived TOR of valuable possession. Changes before half time with Harding and Andy Wright having to leave the field weakened TOR for the second half. This along with a strong wind and playing up hill TOR needed more than a 5:5 score at half time.

A fumble by Tor saw a Nailsea turnover quickly released to their centre who ran downhill from Tor’s 10m line. Alex Payne was dominating lineout and open play with many driving runs. Hooker Matt Sturgess and flanker Alex Gooby were tackling everything that moved, but too many missed passes were giving easy possession to Nailsea, who easily exploited the downhill advantage scoring 2 easy converted tries. An offside gifted Tor with 3 easy points taken by Hamish Malone.

A change a scrum half brought Matt Coley into the team for his debut appearance for the club.

Alex Hall, Austwick and Malone always looked dangerous, but many runs ended with missed passes or dropped ball. Most of the 3rd ¼ saw Nailsea camped out in the Tor half.With 20mins to go TOR found the tactics to succeed with many strong driving forward runs, especially from Payne, Aarron Marshfield and George Stock , but sadly final passes were not going to hand. Tor can take a lot from this encounter, with commitment and aggression in abundance, but fitness and ball handling needs to be improved.