The Junior Colts A XV got back to winning ways with a hard-fought victory at Taunton on Saturday, scoring five tries and weathering all that the opposition could throw at them in a fiercely contested match.

Sherborne started at a rate of knots, as JP's goose step and outside break saw him cross the line with just two minutes on the clock. Fin G followed shortly thereafter before Harry B exploited the space created by slick hands inside him to put us into a 17-0 lead with barely a quarter of the match played. To our hosts' credit, they now started to fight back, and two tries narrowed the margin before Christian P finished strongly in the corner on the stroke of half time. Four tries, and two conversions from Teddy C, was a good return for a first half in which the light blue army had played with great ambition, as well as exploiting slope and wind to excellent effect through some fine kicking out of hand from Ptolemy G.

The second half saw Taunton unleashing some powerful attacking waves which the Sherborne defence struggled to contain. That said, the boys' tackling and commitment around the try line was full of character and, although Taunton did score two tries, there was always a little bit of breathing space. With ball in hand, we continued to pose threats and - perhaps - should have produced more scores than just Christian P's magnificent chip and chase that reopened the gap to 12 points. Despite the need for further dogged defence, exacerbated by a yellow card which reduced the boys to 14 players for the final minutes, Sherborne held firm as the clock ran down to finish 31-19 to the good. There were some mighty celebrations at the final whistle, and deservedly so: the boys' attacking game is becoming more fluent, but they also had to demonstrate real guts and physicality at times, with Nathan A particularly prominent on both sides of the ball.

This was the first of 4 games in 13 days for the side; they are next in action on The Lower on Wednesday, taking on Priestlands School in round 2 of the National Cup. Do join us if you can.