By John 'Scoop' White

Dings Crusaders 36
Weston 18

Dings Crusaders lifted the GWB Combination Cup for the first time since 1996 following their 36-18 victory over Weston at the Memorial Stadium. The Bristol side never had it all their own way, though, and had to come from behind twice before securing their sixth cup final success.

Crusaders head coach Dave Hilton had prepared his side to go the distance and always believed that his team would come good in the later stages of the contest because of the overall strength of his squad.

The former Bristol and Scotland prop said: "We knew that Weston would be a good side and that we would have to treat them with respect. I've seen plenty of these cup finals where its nip and tuck and the game is not decided until the closing stages.

"We felt that, if we stuck to the game plan, we would wear them down and, with the quality we had on our bench, we would have enough to pull clear.

"Our starting fifteen did their jobs well and we began to get on top during the second half. We would have like it to be a more flowing game because we felt we had the fitter side. But, unfortunately, it was a bit stop - start, which didn't really help us."

Dings found themselves a try down inside the opening two minutes of the kick-off when they decided to run out from their own 22 but coughed up possession. Weston threw into the ensuing five-metre line-out and flanker James Rudkin burrowed over from the catch and drive, fly-half James Mackay missing the tricky touchline conversion.

Dings were back on level terms three-minutes later when centre Sheldon Stevens ignored a two-man overlap and backed himself to squeeze over for a try, with fly-half Steve Plummer narrowly missing the extras.

But the game began to get bogged down with penalties with both sides becoming increasingly frustrated with the policing of the breakdown area - each pointing the finger at the other as referee Andy Miller whistled for 31 penalties and brandished three yellow cards - two for Dings and one for Weston.

Plummer booted three further penalties for Crusaders while Mackay landed one for the Seasiders to take the teams into the turnaround with Dings holding a 14-8 advantage.

Weston held the upper hand in the third quarter and took the lead after Mackay slotted a 45th minute penalty and added the extras to Kirk Middlemiss' try. The full-back was on hand to dive in after Mackay had made the initial incision through the Bristol sides defence.

But Dings took over from that point, scoring four unanswered tries in the final quarter. No8 Gavin Curry crossed from a five metre scrum for an unconverted try and he was closely followed by replacement hooker Adam Bellamy who crashed over for his sixth try in two games - Plummer on target with the conversion.

Scrum-half Neil exposed some tired defending to make it 31-18 after 76 minutes before Sam Caven scored on full time. The winger running in a long range effort after man-of-the-match Luke Plummer had sliced through the Somerset sides defence from just outside his 22 before freeing Caven, who stepped inside the covering defender and spectacularly dived in close to the posts to round thing off for Dings.

This was Dings fourth final appearance since lifting the Combination Cup in 1996 - all three previous attempts before this latest attempt ended in defeat. So it was fitting that former club captain James Luck, who suffered heartache in 1999, 2001 and 2010, came off the bench for Dings to make it fourth time ‘lucky' this time around.