For the second match in a row the Athletic started with enough players but many playing out of position. In addition no referee had been appointed and Clevedon “kindly” used one of their players who has apparently done all the necessary qualifications, but we think he may have used a substitute ringer when it came to his assessment – see later comments.

A brisk start from Weston saw them spin it wide on the first opportunity and McGrath made excellent ground, drew the defence and slip a pass inside to McCarthy who wriggled over for a try on four minutes. Better hands this week Mikey – so no “hands of shame for you this week! Frost got the extras and it looked like Weston could dominate if they could get some quick clean ball.

The game was scrappy and bad tempered and Clevedon’s pack proved too heavy for the Athletic And they struggled all afternoon. Clevedon struck back with an unconverted try. Following another foray into Weston territory Stamp was yellow carded quite unjustly.

The number disadvantage proved to great and Weston were unable to prevent a Clevedon score. However just a few moments later Weston’s lively backs broke out with McCarthy scoring in the corner and Frost again converting to leave the score at Weston 14 Clevedon 10.

Weston asked the referee how much time was left in the half after this score and they were told “one minute”. This concurred with Cheds’ stopwatch but bizarrely the ref added time on, and on, and on.

Both teams were asking when the interval would be or would we be playing 80 minutes straight with no turn around. The game on a neighbouring pitch was well into the second half when Clevedon battered their way over from a series of robust forward drives and conservative estimates were that the first half was 56 minutes long with no lengthy spells for injury.

McGrath had pulled up with a hamstring injury and Walker was on the pitch as well as Stamp returning from his sin bin sojourn (which should have run into the second half) before the ref finally blew for half time.

So at what we might have wanted to call half time, but was more like time and a half, the scores were 15:14 in favour of the home side.
The second half continued to be dominated by Clevedon’s heavyweight pack and Weston defended stoutly.

Clevedon finally crossed Weston’s line and the player in possession clearly knocked on and touched down over the dead ball line. When questioned about this the ref insisted that knock on in the in goal area didn’t count as an infringement and awarded the try which Clevedon converted to take an 8 point lead which despite the Weston players throwing everything into attack they were never to lose.

The game on the next pitch was long over and the gathering gloom made it difficult to see anything at all when the ref blew for no side with 49 minutes on Cheds’ stop watch with only a brief stoppage when Stamp badly twisted ankle required treatment and a chance for James Tuohy to chalk up an appearance.

So probably the longest game in history with nearly 25 minutes of phantom injury time!!

The Athletic players should not feel at all down hearted about this game, which they lost by a relatively narrow margin.

Several players putting on a good show, playing out of position and against an unnaturally heavy pack; they all stuck to the task, tackled bravely; and did not rise to the quite understandable frustration which resulted from some manic refereeing decisions.

No game now until 4th January 2014 – time for some festive rest and recuperation.