Okehampton RFC 27

St Austell RFC 26

FOR their first home league fixture of the season, Okehampton came face to face with the newly promoted Saints, a side flying high after two wins from their first two league games.

The game, whilst never a complete classic, was incredibly tight throughout and could have gone either way right to the bitter end.

Oke played up the Oaklands slope first. The home start was a lively one; Oke made inroads into Saint's twenty two on several occasions and gained reward on three of them. The referee took no prisoners and regularly penalised the visitors , and this resulted in home stand off Kevin Dennis slotting three well struck penalties in the first twenty five minutes to put Okehampton nine points ahead.

St Austell were already looking a well drilled outfit though, and their bulkier pack was holding sway at scrum time during the first half. It was from one such scrum that the Okes made their first costly error. Ball at the rear was lost and the end result was a try from close range for the visiting forwards. Full back Miles added the extra two and with ten minutes left in the first half Oke's lead was down to two points.

Two more unnecessary errors, one a missed touch from a penalty, resulted in two more tries for a St Austell side now very much with its tail up. The first was finished with some pace by winger Chenoweth for a fine converted score. Then right on the interval, a combination of good support play and missed tackles meant the Saints led 19-9 at the break.

Okehampton had to dig deep and brought on prop Nicky Martin to shore up the scrum. Almost immediately this had the desired effect. A close range scrum saw Okehampton move forward with purpose; after infringing, the referee had no option but to penalise the visiting eight and award a penalty try.

The Saints continued to incur the wrath of the man in the middle, and lost their scrum half to the bin for an enforced ten minute rest.

During this time, Okehampton brought on fly half Carl Poynton from the bench and with his first touch he slotted over a penalty from distance to tie things up.

Before long Poynton had influenced proceedings further. He scurried down the blind channel and showed the ball nicely to slide through for an unconverted corner try. Okehampton had regained the lead once more entering the final quarter.

Poynton missed a penalty chance and the visitors, back at full strength, came forward again. Okehampton failed to hold out as several tackles went too high. The Saints drove deep into the heart of the Okehampton defence and crossed for their bonus point try near the uprights. It was converted and Oke had to come from behind once more as they trailed 26-24.

Poynton was once more the man as he potted another penalty goal to give the hosts a slender one point advantage as time ticked away.

Okehampton though never make things easy. They failed to deal with the kick off and after a short passage of play, a relatively straightforward penalty was awarded to the visitors. Fate smiled on the Okes though as the kicker suffered a nasty snatch and pulled it wide.

The referee immediately blew for time and the Okes now have three wins from three and sit second in the league.

Oke travel to newly demoted St Ives next week aiming to maintain their 100% start, KO 3pm.