Combination Cup quarter-final Thornbury 9 Weston 15 THORNBURY battled valiantly but ultimately in vain as Weston super Mare won a tough Combination Cup Quarter Final at Rockhampton Road.

However, Thorns could have won as two tries were disallowed.

The match, sponsored by Thornbury Broncos, was an open encounter.

Thornbury adopted a positive approach, attacking whenever they could.

However, Weston's powerful pack drove over from a line out to open the scoring with an unconverted try.

Thornbury attacked from the restart. Nick Balman won a Weston lineout and Dai Matthews ran hard. The ball eventually came back to Matthews again who dropped a goal.

Simon Weaver kicked Thornbury into good attacking positions.

From one, Thorns pressurised the Weston defence into a mistake. A miscued kick was gathered by Weaver close to the line and he crashed over. Controversially, the referee disallowed the try although Weaver was convinced he had scored.

Thornbury continued to attack with dangerous runs from Luke Workman, Ollie Fleming, Carl Boucher and several by Matthews.

In defence, 17-year old Carl Beyer was prominent. However, they were unable to add to their score and were 5-3 behind at the interval.

Simon Weaver kicked a penalty to put Thorns ahead after a fine run by Jon Day but Weston increased their tempo and their forwards drove over for two unconverted tries in quick succession before Weaver scored a second penalty after Matthews had pressurised the Weston defence.

As the match entered injury time, the ball was moved from a defensive scrum to Steve Allington.

The winger sprinted down the touchline and kicked ahead but was beaten to the ball by the defence.

Weston struggled to clear and shortly afterwards Allington crashed over in the corner.

The touch-judge indicated he had scored but the referee over-ruled the official.

The visitors' defence held out and Weston had won.