MINEHEAD Barbarians made it 4 wins from 4 under new coach Isaiah Graham-Hooper and climbed to third in the league after beating undefeated St Bernadettes RFC 17-14 away.

The game started as it would go on, tightly contested with both teams desperate to assert their game plans and physicality.

Minehead’s attacking game continued to back up the efforts from training with the structure in place to support some fine individual performance.

Allerton back in his more familiar position of 12 made numerous strong carries, combining well with Hole to get the Barbarians on the front foot. This resulted in the ball being spun wide to in-form powerhouse winger Chinn, who scored under the posts. However, indiscipline started to cost the away team as they fell to the referee’s whistle allowing St Bernadette's priceless field position which they converted into two tries taking the score to 14-7 after 25 minutes.

This seemed to inspire the Barbarians to play some superb attacking rugby. One such attack was started by the forwards with strong carries from Edwards and Bullard enabling quick ball to Wilcox who ghosted through the defence, drawing his man and putting Chinn away in the corner.

At half time the score of 14-12 reflected a tight top of the table encounter. The second half became a real tussle and both teams seemed to cancel each other out.

On his return to the black and whites, tight head White made a few bullocking runs up field with loose forwards Josh Edwards and Buckingham always never far from the action. Veteran Willes came more and more into the game, using his experience to carry the hard yards when needed. With Hawker pulling the strings at scrum half the Barbarians gained an upper hand but failed to convert this pressure into much needed points.

With 15 minutes to go the score remained 14-12 to the home team. A tense game threatened to boil over as the St Bernadette's fly half and Hole became over friendly resulting in a straight red for the home player and a yellow for Hole. Another penalty conceded resulted in a charge on the Barbarians line by the Bristol team but a superb chop tackle from captain Buckingham, who had put his head in the spokes all afternoon, created a turnover from which Minehead moved down field.

Hawker kicked beautifully to punish St Bernadette's indiscipline and gain vital field position. From such a kick 5m from the home line the Barbarians pack executed a fine driving lineout and White was on hand for a trademark 1m burst over the line to give the Barbarians a try and 3 point lead.

The last 5 minutes were tense as St Bernadettes, with their unbeaten record on the line, threw everything at the brave Barbarians. They were often met by No8 Edwards who seemed to knock them back harder with each hit.

The scrum came into its own and after a monumental shift from the old war horse Swann, Hollingsworth came back on and fired into two huge Barbarians shoves which caused havoc on the home team. One last indiscipline from St Bernadette's resulted in a Barbarians penalty 35 m out. Hawker stepped up and missed the kick, but the ball went dead, which sounded the final whistle to jubilant scenes from all involved in the Barbarian camp. MOTM - George Buckingham.