clifton v winscombe

Clifton under-13s lost 31-17 at home to Winscombe but can take a lot of pride in their second-half performance.

With more than 20 of our squad unavailable, we were down to 12 players for this half-term fixture and had to borrow three from the opposition.

We conceded four tries in the first half and could easily have allowed our heads to drop.

But after an inspirational half-time talk from Michael we stormed back to take the second half 3 tries to 1.

Our try scorers were Louis, who drove over from short range as we put pressure on their line, Luke, who showed real pace to run round their defence after fielding a kick near the halfway line, and Matthew, who showed power and pace to storm over.

We showed great character in the second half and kicked intelligently making use of a strong breeze.

It would be unfair to pick an individual for man of the match, instead it should go to the team as a whole for lifting our spirits on the touch line.

Thanks to Winscombe for lending us players and to their coach who reffed so well that even our boys could find no cause for complaint.