Hornets 1st's v Keynsham 1st's 23 -16

The lads traveled to Hornets RFC at Weston to play on their 3G pitch, not Keynsham’s favourite surface. Notwithstanding this, they gave a whole-hearted effort throughout the 80 minutes.
Both sides showed great willingness to play flowing rugby and it was only the fact that both teams had superb defences that stopped this being a high scoring try fest. Keynsham went into an early lead after 5 minutes courtesy of a Dean Weaver penalty, awarded for an off-side offence. Play ebbed and flowed but Hornets equalised after 16 minutes with a penalty from their full back, Charlie Carter when John Pearce was rather harshly penalised for a deliberate knock on. Once again play moved up and down the pitch frequently. On 25 minutes the K’s were guilty of letting the ball bounce when a penalty kick to touch failed, putting themselves under pressure close to their try line. The defence held but two more successive penalties followed at 30 minutes, the second of which was successful from Carter, putting the home side 3 points clear.  The resulting kick-off did not go the required 10 metres and from the scrum Hornets scored a try under the posts from their scrum-half, Hayden Tuttiett. This was a smartly made and taken effort but a soft 7 points given away by the visitors. On the stroke of half-time Keynsham got 3 points back by another successful Weaver penalty. The same offence cost the hosts a yellow card. Half time score, a very creditable 13-9.
With Hornets temporarily down to 14 players Keynsham edged ahead after 6 minutes, 13-16. Pearce went on a mazy break from inside his own half and, several phases later Dan Moody thundered across the try-line; Weaver added the conversion. The return of the sin-binned player coincided with Hornets spoiling a lovely chance for a try. Ash Linton replaced the hard-working Joe Clements in the second row at this point. Hornets did get the try they wanted after 13 minutes when their right wing Andrew Wheller scored but the conversion was wide. Joe Concannon nearly squeezed in for a try for Keynsham but was denied by good defence. Kieran Etheridge replaced Phil Harvey at this stage, in the front row.
The visitors were under heavy pressure in their ‘red zone’ when Concannon shot away following an intercept, hopes were quickly dashed as the ref had been playing advantage for a previous offence, and play was whistled back. With 3 minutes left Hornets got their third try, just as handbags were beginning to be exchanged some distance away from the action. The conversion failed and left the score at 23-16. The game ended with Keynsham pounding the Hornets try line, but to no avail. The boys had put in a great shift and deserved their losing bonus point.