Tribute Devon two

Plympton Victoria 13

North Tawton 3

IT was a murky day under the Marsh Mills flyover at Plympton, with the distracting roar of traffic and trains a far cry from the tranquillity of Taw Meadows. A new speedway track had been built beside the pitch, but today it was North Tawton who failed to turn up to the races.

After an evenly-contested but indecisive first ten minutes North Tawton's scrum half David Fewings made the most of pressure from his forwards to slot a drop goal from 20 metres out.

Some good positional kicking by Tawton, taking advantage of the small pitch, kept Plympton Victoria on the back foot but the visitors lost the ball too easily in the loose play where Plympton's strong pack had the edge, and Tawton failed to capitalise on the pressure.

A blood injury to Tawton's Simon Quick brought on Adam Davis, making his return to the team since breaking his leg some weeks ago.

A penalty kick to Tawton went wide of the mark, and Plympton came back immediately with a good three-quarters' move which created a gap in the defensive line; through this Plympton's pacy full back sped over for a try, converted by the fly-half and taking the score to 7-3 to the home team.

A long kick downfield by Plympton Victoria led to a line-out five metres from Tawton's line. The scrambled ball was won by Plympton and gave their fly-half his chance to drop a goal, and take his side to 10-3 ahead.

Tawton were not playing well, and were under pressure as the half moved to its close. A good mark was called by full-back Mike Symons and his tap and feed to Fewings gave Tawton's scrum-half the chance to put in a long clearance and give his side some respite.

The final chance of a score in the first half came to Tawton, awarded a penalty on the Plympton 22 metre line. The kick unluckily glanced off the outside of a post, leaving the half time score unchanged.

In the second half Tawton's scrum was working well, pushing Plympton back in the set scrums and preventing them getting clean ball. A well-placed kick by Simon Quick took Tawton back into the attack, but errors were creeping in and ball retention in the loose play continued to be a problem. Good kicking from defence by Plympton also had its effect and it was the home side who were looking more composed. Another penalty for Plympton stretched their lead to 13 -3.

A final flourish by Tawton, when they started to look more like the team of previous weeks, came from a five metre scrum. Good driving by Ian Perrett and the following maul put Keith Jones over the try line, but he was deemed to have been held up and the try was not awarded.

• This week North Tawton are away to South Molton in a friendly fixture.