Friendly

Honiton 2nds 71

NORTH Tawton’s second team took the field with three borrowed Honiton players to make up the fifteen in this fixture arranged at the last minute.

Within the first ten minutes Honiton ran in two tries and the writing was on the wall for Tawton.

Although the home side’s scrum held out well in the set pieces, particularly their flanker Oliver Hodgson who was tackling anything that moved, the Honiton three quarters cut through the Tawton defence almost at will. They ran in six more tries by the half time whistle, all converted, racking up a lead of 52 points.

The match was not all one way traffic and Tawton rallied well under the onslaught and came close to scoring a couple of times but lacked the impetus to get over the line. Fly half Jamie Stevens set up a brief counterattack from deep in Tawton’s half and cleared with a good kick but shortly after had to go off with a leg injury; Hodgson assumed the main kicking duties as another Honiton player came on as substitute.

In the second half Graham Sage moved to the fly half slot and Tawton began to get the measure of the Honiton attack, restricting them to three tries in the second period, two of which were converted.

North Tawton finally struck back when their experienced second row forward Paul Turner took a quick tap penalty close to the Honiton try line and stretched over for a consolation try. This was converted by Sage, much to the delight of the sparse home crowd of the proverbial two men and one dog — although there was no dog.

Although this was a heavy loss it was still in the same ball park as Wales’ win over Italy.