TAVISTOCK Rugby Club's new £109,000 pitch was officially opened on Saturday by president of the Devon Rugby Football Union Max Turner and attended by around 100 people including sponsors.

The celebratory event featured three games, with the three home sides playing visiting teams, which were all held in dry weather.

The under eights and under nines gave a lively display of touch rugby prior to the main games.

Jeffrey Lawson, home secretary of the club said: 'The whole day was very successful. We had about 200 people in the clubhouse afterwards.

'By all accounts the pitch played very well despite all the rain we had beforehand.'

The visitors were welcomed by club chairman John Wakem and club president Trevor Masters.

Half of the pitch was funded by the Rugby Football Union via Sport England, and the other half was from grants and funds raised by the club itself and private donations.

The funding not only enabled the construction of the top class pitch, but the installation of floodlighting for training areas aswell.

The club had to make changes to meet the stringent criteria to provide, sustain and increase participation in rugby in order to qualify for the grant funding.

Tavistock rugby club now runs three senior men's teams, a colts side and a number of junior teams.