WELLINGTON RFC Under 16s travelled to Taunton without six of their players who were playing for Bristol Bears Academy.

Taunton were also missing several players to the Bears but those remaining from both teams put on a great display. Taunton started strongly but Wellington defended well to hold them out for a number of phases before Taunton scored the first try.

Playing on a football pitch with no posts, and the rugby lines marked in blue meant no conversions in the match but that wouldn't take anything away from the game. Wellington then got hold of the ball and attacked with vigour driving hard into the Taunton defence.

Jonah Kyle then hit a great line to smash through the Taunton defence and race under where the posts would be. Unfortunately he did a Forrest Gump and kept running, racing over the dead ball line, which was unfortunate because no try was scored.

Taunton then played some good rugby and scored the next three tries. But four tries to nil did not reflect this game as Wellington had good periods of possession and were unlucky not to score a couple of tries.

The second half kicked off with Wellington playing up the hill. Ollie Bradley seemed to fumble a lineout before gathering the ball and racing clear from 60 metres out. He just outpaced the defence to score a great individual try in only his 2nd match of the season for the club.

Taunton then scored before the human pinball Bailey Lee bounced off would be tacklers to score a great try. Taunton scored again before Jonah Kyle made no mistake when given a second chance and scored a good try in the corner. Taunton scored another before another superb individual effort from Bailey Lee made it 7 tries to 4 to Taunton.

But this was a much improved performance from the Welly Boys. It was great to see Ollie Bradley and George Corp back in the team playing well and new player Jake Perry settled in well with some good tackles and runs. Aaron Zhang, James Winter, Jonah Kyle and Bailey Lee all had their best games for a long time and it will make selection hard when the Bears players are back.

This coming weekend ( February 9) Wellington are home to Taunton and then on the 23rd they face Taunton at home in the final league game. That promises to be a great game and hopefully both teams will have all their players available.

Meanwhile, it’s a fantastic achievement for a club of Wellington’s size to have six players involved with the Bears including four in the main 23, with Harrison Sanchez-Lane, Tom Farrow and Will Barnes also unlucky to miss out due to injury.