Bedford Blues 16 Plymouth Albion 19

Plymouth Albion produced arguably the shock result of the weekend as a Ben Mercer try two minutes from time snatched victory from under the noses of the Blues at Goldington Road.

Bedford thought they had secured victory with a converted try from Myles Dorrian in the 74 th minute but the visitors who competed fiercely all afternoon were having none of it. Replacement fly-half Kieran Hallett had time to sling out a long pass to Mercer out on the wing and he touched down to silence the home crowd.

After both sides had missed early penalties the Blues went ahead on 16 minutes as Dorrian finally found his range. He added a second penalty to his tally four minutes later but loose play in midfield after 23 minutes allowed Albion wing Liam Gibson to steal possession and race home for the first try of the match. Mark Lee then added a penalty leaving Albion 8-6 to the good at the break.

Lee added a further two penalties after the break along with a second from Dorrian to leave the game poised at 14-9 to the visitors going in to the last ten minutes. Brad Davies set up the Blues fly-half for what looked to be the decisive score only for Albion and Mercer to have other ideas.

Full report www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/albion

Blues fly-half Myles Dorrian was left lamenting that his side had failed to cope with Albion’s tactics. He said:

“We were down in the dumps following last weeks result but for that to happen was a real kick in the guts. Most teams are playing ‘stick it up your jumper’ rugby which is the winter way over here and maybe we should just start doing that a bit more.

“The bottom line was that there were too many dropped balls. Their try in the first half was our mistake, but they created a little bit more after the break. We should have held out though.

Full story www.bedfordshire-news.co.uk

Albion chairman of rugby Graham Dawe was full of praise for his cohorts. He said: "The boys worked hard – as they have been doing for the last 16 or 17 weeks.

We are trying to play the game as it should be played and we are trying to get a right balance. We will keep trying to do that.”

"It was a good 22-man effort on Saturday, but we have to knuckle down and work hard again, because that will not be good enough this coming week."

Full story www.thisisplymouth.co.uk

Birmingham & Solihull 6 London Welsh 29

In a lacklustre match at Sharmans Cross Road London Welsh relied on two converted tries in the final 14 minutes to secure victory and take maximum points back to the capital.

The Bees led 6-3 with half-time approaching as Simon Hunt and Ed Lewis-Pratt exchanged penalties only for turnover ball to gift the Welsh a try from deep inside their own half, as Simon Whatling set up John Fisher to score from distance.

Lewis-Pratt converted and three minutes later the Bees were again all at sea in defence as Guy Mercer waltzed through to score leaving the visitors 15-6 to the good at the break.

With the match losing its way as a true contest after the break the Bees eventaully ran out of steam completely conceding a penalty try on 66 minutes with their scrum in complete disarray. Thomas converted and did the same again two minutes from time as Paul Mackey capped the win with a fourth try.

Bees backs coach Eugene Martin told the Birmingham Mail that if his team had not conceded possession to gift the Welsh the first try things might have been different.

He said, “I seriously thought at that stage we could score and go on and win the game. ad the boys had a bit of patience, the try would have come but it just unfolded in front of your eyes. What was it? Eighty metres? I thought ‘Oh my God here we go again’.

“It was frustrating because the boys had a pact before the game that whenever we got into their 22 we could not do anything silly.

“We were determined to come away with something, be it a drop kick, a penalty or a try, and until that moment we’d done that pretty well.”

Full story www.birminghammail.net

Match report www.birminghampost.net

Exeter Chiefs 45 Coventry 11

The charity extended by the Chiefs to struggling Coventry stopped as soon as the teams took the field at Sandy Park as the home side ran in six tries to wrap up at thirteenth straight league win.

The visitors did edge ahead with a 6 th minute penalty from Oliver Grove before two penalties from Danny Gray claimed the lead back for the Chiefs. Grove struck again with the boot on 23 minutes but then the Exeter machine clicked seamlessly into gear and the visitors never troubled the scoreboard again until the dying seconds of the match.

First half tries from Haydn Thomas and Phil Dollman with one conversion added by Gray moved the Chiefs into a dominant 18-6 half-time lead. Ten points immediately after the restart courtesy of a penalty try converted by Gray who also added a penalty racked up the momentum as Coventry faced a hiding.

As the Chiefs pack relenlessly ground their opponents to a pulp Chris Budgen bludgeoned his way across the Coventry line from close range with Mark Foster adding a fifth try on 72 minutes.

Another massive thrust from the Exeter pack rewarded hooker Saul Nelson with their final try of the afternoon two minutes from time. In stoppage time Coventry centre Drew Locke broke to set up Chris Lewis for a consolation score.

Match report www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk

Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter said,

“It was another slow burner of a game, but we tend to be involved in those a lot these days. Tactically we got a lot of things right early in the game and it helped keep the pressure off us.

"I know at times it wasn't perfect. We kicked direct to touch a few times and had a couple of knock-ons, but it avoids you being put under pressure early in the game and it allows you to build your way into games.

"It means as the opposition tire or we start to get a feel for games, we can exploit the situation. We scored some very good tries and we were in control for the whole game. The only real disappointment was that we let them in for that try at the end – that dents your defensive stats a bit. On the whole, though, if you think these guys drew with Bedford last week and then we put 40 points on them, you can't complain too much."

Coventry forwards coach Dave Addleton said,

“It’s been a hard week to get the players up for a game. Nobody has been paid for six or seven weeks, and that’s tough. We haven’t been able to train, we’ve just done a team run, and it’s been hard to keep the boys’ heads up and ask them to play.

“The players wanted to play, and we can’t ask for more than that. Now we have to try and hold things together and hopefully something will be sorted this week so we can go on from there.”

Story www.coventrytelegraph.net

Rotherham Titans 0 Bristol 15

Bristol dominated this match in terms of territory and possession but failed to score a fourth try to secure maximum points at Clifton Lane.

The Titans defended solidly but offered little in attack and now lie 10 th in the Championship with a tricky trip to London Welsh ahead of them next Saturday.

Bristol took the lead with a try from hooker David Blaney after just 9 minutes and doubled their lead on the stroke of half time as centre Jack Adams found space from ten metres out to touch down.

The game continued to be contested at a slow pace after the break with every scrap of possession and territory bitterly contested. Bristol offered little in terms of an offensive threat until Blaney was driven over for his second and Bristol`s third try on the hour to make the game safe.

Match report www.thisisbristol.co.uk

Bristol head coach Paul Hull said afterwards, “We should be proud of an away win like this. We had to dig very deep in an extremely physical environment, and there are a few battered boys in the dressing room.

"They really tore into us and made life difficult, but I'm very pleased with the victory and another shut out. At the start of the season we might have lost this game, so today shows how far we've come."

Full story www.thisisbristol.co.uk

Titans head coach Craig West told the Yorkshire Post that he didn`t think his team had dealt with Bristol`s maul well enough. He said, “We knew that was Bristol's strength but didn't counter it well enough and it proved decisive.

"We never got out of second gear and never really gave our supporters anything to jump up and down about. We never got going or maintained the ball long enough to have any impact.

"There were positives: the forwards were good, we competed well defensively and we were good in the scrum. We gave as good as we got in all those areas. We are not far away, we have just got to stay positive."

Full story www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

Cornish Pirates 10 Doncaster Knights 12

Pirates Website match report ………

Western Morning News view www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk

Words from the Doncaster Star www.thestar.co.uk/rugbyunion

Nottingham 30 Moseley 15

Moseley again demonstrated their inability to play cohesive rugby for a full eighty minutes as they both started and finished this contest slowly despite making a real fist of it in the middle.

In difficult conditions the home side raced to a 15-0 lead inside a quarter of an hour courtesy of tries from Sherriff and Hammond complimented by a penalty and conversion from Taylor.

But as the Pirates found out last week Moseley fly-half Tristan Roberts is a fine striker of a the ball and by half-time his four penalties and a drop goal had reduced Nottingham’s lead to 18-15.

The home side were then reduced to fourteen as Dan Hemingway was sin binned but a complete howler from Moseley centre Jonny May dropping the ball in the act of scoring turned the tide.

Instead of leading into the final quarter the Midlanders from Billesley Common found themselves further behind as Roberts missed his tackle on Ben Johnston and Nottingham plundered their third try.

Billy Twelvetrees wrapped up the home victory with a bonus point clinching score in the last minute.

Nottingham director of rugby Glen Delaney said,

“ When you give penalties away you lose momentum and they took the points when they were on offer. It was really hard work but I was very impressed by our defence in the second half when we defended the line with 14 blokes at one stage and we denied them a try. The defence then was outstanding.

"It was quite a frustrating game. It promised a lot, especially after the first ten minutes, it was good free-flowing stuff but we just went off the boil after that.

"The errors that we made, especially from dropped balls from kick-offs allowed them easy possession in our third, we were bit poor in terms of the penalties we gave away, that was disappointing."

Match report www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/rugby

Birmingham Mail view www.birminghampost.net