Totnes U16s RFC 10

Okehampton RFC U16s 10

OKEHAMPTON U16s, winners of ?The Sweedes Cup?, travelled to Totnes last Thursday to play the winners of ?The Fisherman?s Cup? .

Totnes had not lost at home for two seasons but Okehampton drew with them last season so a good close encounter was forecast.

In a tense match play switched from end to end. Okehampton?s forwards played their usual tight driving game with Dan Hudson, Chris Searle and Sam Turner making the hard yards. Phil Woods and Rob Clarke made ground in the centre but could not breach the Totnes cover defence.

Wingers Luke Honeychurch and Gary Sizmur made searching, weaving runs but attacks were stifled by a well organised and committed Totnes.

On five minutes Totnes scored from a penalty after a technical infringement at a lineout. They failed with two further penalties over the next ten minutes before Okehampton finally got on the scoresheet with a penalty by Andy Herrod-Taylor.

Totnes then scored a converted try under the posts by Tim Gaudin.

Richard Bolt crossed the line for a disallowed try as he had taken a second penalty too quickly. Okehampton then opted for a kick at goal and missed just before half-time to leave the score 10-3 to Totnes.

Early in the second half, continued pressure led Totnes to give away successive penalties and from five metres Bolt was not going to be denied a second time.

Herrod-Taylor slotted a difficult conversion from the wide left side to tie the scores with 20 minutes to play.

Matt West and Paul Lawrence provided good lineout ball with Dean Beardon causing the opposition lineout major problems as he forced through to pressure the scrum half. Stewart Down at full back was only beaten once with two players to tackle and had another excellent game.

Captain Simon Cox had another outstanding game with his tackling and turnover ball.

Both sides almost broke away many times and kept the large crowd on edge.

Totnes missed a further penalty from long range with Okehampton missing a drop goal attempt.

Tom Bird and Honeychurch were replaced, due to injury, by Richard Mortimore and Alex Taylor, who drove the side on with fresh energy.

As the whistle blew for full-time two cup winning sides were content with a draw.