Report and Pictures by Roger Pike
Lydney 20 Newent 12
A good crowd turned out at Regentsholme on a glorious Saturday for this local derby with the Green Army and it was the Severnsiders who gained the crucial win to get their season underway leaving the visitors in the relegation places at this early stage.
The Severnsiders started the brighter and dominated the opening encounters with Newent unable to get out of their own half. The Lydney pack were rampant and creating havoc with the Newent scrum, from a series of resets the Official had no option but to award a penalty try for 7 – 0 after just 5 minutes. Newent were determined to respond and put pressure on the Lydney line but a poor pass saw an interception for Mike Cross the Lydney winger who went the length of the pitch to score under the posts, Nathan Tucker added the extras for 14 – 0. The home side continued to dominate the game with the visitors making a few errors with the Lydney defence line up fast. The continued pressure ended with a good move from John Barker the big back rower whose rampaging runs caused Newent problems all afternoon, his clever kick through just found touch when Lydney looked sure to regather and score. The host’s game then stalled as Lydney suffered two major injuries with Jack O’ Connell and Nathan Tucker both carried off, with no other back subs Callum Wyman then moved from the back row into centre for the rest of the game. The Severnsiders forwards were still dominating and from a good scrum saw a great move across the back line only for Mike Cross to be tackled just short with the full back to beat. A resulting penalty saw Joe Hamlin knock over the kick to extend the lead to 17 – 0. The Severnsiders looked now to be coasting to the interval but a knock on gave the visitors the ball whose speedy backs worked a move for a good score and 17 – 7 at half time
Lydney started the second half strongly looking to put the game out of site and from a good 5m scrum a score looked a certainty but some controversy from the Official who believed the ball was out of the scrum, any score was wiped out and a penalty given to Newent. The visitors started to get back into the game playing now in the Lydney half and a good move across the speedy backs sees another score to bring them right back into the game at 20 – 12. Lydney then had Costner Lane sin binned and the crowd were starting to get nervous as the game became much closer than the possession would indicate. Lydney kept their cool, the crowd got behind the team and the Severnsiders easily managed out the final 10 minutes of a very entertaining game to win 20- 12.
Coach Lee Fortey commented ‘delighted this was a much better performance, really pleased the players responded after the last two weeks and put in a real shift. The forwards were good, the set piece very secure but with a bit more patience we could easily have scored a number of tries and been out of sight by half time. The injuries disrupted us in the second half but I thought we were always in control of the game; any win in a local derby is great performance. We will need the selected 15 to be on their game next week as will be a tough game away at Newton Abbot but for sure after this performance a match we are well capable of winning’.