Old Patesians – 39
Wotton Bassett – 37
With seven key players absent on county duty Pat's gusty performance earned them a hard fought victory in an epic 14 try thriller at Everest road.
The visitors used their huge and pacey number eight and flying Fijian winger to run in 6 first half tries with Pats fighting hard to stay in contention.
The rampant visitors exploited poor Pats tackling throughout the half enabling huge holes to be punched in their defensive line. Pats dominated the scrums and regularly won against the head but poor handling saw to ball too frequently knocked on in mid field and scoring chances went begging.
The home side were smart in attack but their execution was lacking, full back Sam Colbert - Smith regularly popping up in between the centre creating overlaps only for poor handling to spoil the moves.
Turnover ruck ball on the halfway line found centre Andrew Cox who superbly drew the defence to put White clear to scorch over from 30 metres out.
A scrum won against the head on the visitors 22 saw stand in scrum half George Davis whip the ball to Jamie Delgado-Morgan whose angled run and spectacular dive saw him score in the corner. As the half drew to a close stand in fly half Zach Rob's sliced clearance attempt turned into an excellent cross kick straight into the arms of speedster White on Pats 22 who's brilliant individual effort raced 60 metres out pacing the entire Basset back line for his second try bringing the score to six unconverted tries to three at half time. Pats improved tackling and reduced error count added to their dominance at scrum time meant that the second half was a different story.
The home side drove the visitors off their scrum ball on the halfway line, swung the ball right and were first to the breakdown and good work from Isaac Derbyshire won maul ball on the Basset 22 and Pats worked the ball to the left wing for White to complete his hat trick.
The visitors hit back immediately with the flying Fijian completing his brace. Pats were magnificent in the last 10 minutes and their determination and self belief produced a remarkable fight back with Zach Robb chasing down Sam Colbert - Smth well placed kick ahead to score a converted try.
In the dying seconds it was Colbert - Smith again who collected a pass from Robb and produced an outrageous side step to score near the posts to level the scores and coolly slotted over the conversion to take the final score to 39-37.
