Plymouth Albion Vs Taunton Titans

Last Saturday the Titans travelled the comparatively short distance down country to play their closest geographical rivals, Plymouth Albion,  in what was always destined to be an intriguing tussle in their penultimate National League One fixture. The Titans are safely placed in mid-table away from all the relegation woes that were haunting other famous old clubs in the league, including Albion,  who needed to notch up a victory to secure their place in next season's National One line-up, so to say the atmosphere down at The Brickfields was tense was a major understatement - the tension amongst the passionate Albion supporters was palpable, writes Dick Macey.

The rumour was that Albion were back to something like what they would consider to be full strength and their opening salvoes quickly showed a confidence that was to be the hallmark of their afternoon's game plan. Their defence was fierce and strong, yielding barely a yard and they showed their detemination by setting up a controlled rolling maul to post their first score with a try in the 6t minute and theirkicker, Putt, showed his ability by kicking the first of sevenconversions. spite attempts to get the backs going theTitans were constantly frustrated by the ferocity of the home side's defenceand  were clearly being outplayed by Albion who were feeding off the Titan'senforced errors. the first session  moved towardsconclusion Albion had moved to a 21-0 lead and it was only in the closingmoments of the half that the Taunton boys got a score on the board through abattling try by Harry Tarling wide out but which Connor Banks was able toconvert making the score 21-7 at the whistle.

Within five minutes of the re-start Albion had closed off the game, scoring two more converted trys and it was only then that some confidence came to the Titans game.   They battled hard and squeezed out two more trys, one through Greg Kitson wide out and one through Shai Bonnick using his weight advantage to force his way over with four Albion defenders hanging on to him, neither of which were converted.    It must be said that the home side benefitted from the rub of the green on a number of occasions, particularly as the game was moving through the final ten minutes when two fortunate bounces and a missed tackle yielded three more trys for the Albion, with two converted, to bring the final score to 54-17.

This one has to go down as a disappointing day at the office for the Titans who were never able to get their game going and were never given any wriggle room to build their moves such was the persistence throughout of the Albion's defence. After the game Isaac "Sniffer" Dalton, the popular Titan's tight head prop, was presented with an engraved mug to mark his gamein a Taunton shirt and we salute him and thank him for his ever-busycontribution to the cause.  

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