North Tawton 17 Exeter Saracens Seconds 8 THE wet conditions meant that North Tawton's Centenary pitch was again brought into action and the few hardy spectators saw an evenly contested first half. Despite a blank score line after 40 minutes the match was not without incident. The North Tawton scrum was in good form and after only a few minutes they had driven Saracens off their own scrum ball. The pass went out wide to Keith Jones on the wing but he was held up just short of the line, and Saracens were able to clear their lines. Unfortunately Tawton's play in the loose was frowned upon by the referee to the extent that he yellow-carded two Tawton players in three minutes, reducing the home side to 13 men. This did not deter the remainder of the team and a good follow-up tackle by centre Chris Martin on the Saracens full back stopped a counter attack in its tracks. More good play by fellow centre Simon Metcalf to poach a loose ball out of a maul was unluckily deemed to be off-side. This gave Saracens the chance to open their scoring but the penalty kick to the posts was missed. As the final minutes of the half ticked away Tawton had another chance of a try. Chris Martin retrieved a ball as it was rolling into touch about five metres from the Saracens' try line and his neat back flick of the ball was collected by charging number eight Steve King. The defenders managed to push him off line so that he hit the corner flag as he went over and the try was disallowed. Virtually on the whistle Saracens also received a yellow card.Within minutes of the start of the second half Saracens opened the scoring with a well-taken penalty kick by Dave French from about 20 metres out. The immediate response from Tawton was a long restart kick down to the visitors' five metre line where a scrum was driven over by Tawton. Number eight John Griffiths was held up as he attempted to ground the ball, but a second scrum was set and this time the ball was fed out quickly on the blind side to winger Dave Quick who stepped inside the defence and scored the first try for Tawton. The conversion was added by fly half Luke Honeychurch to put Tawton 7-3 in the lead. The next score went to Saracens as a charged-down clearance kick was picked up by number 8 Mark Westlake. Despite losing his footing he recovered to dive over for a try, which was not converted, but gave the Exeter side a narrow lead. North Tawton established some dominance in the later stages and kept the Saracens' line under pressure. A line out to Tawton close to the visitors' try line developed into a driving maul. As they crossed the line John Griffiths grounded the ball but he was on the opposite side to the referee who was unsighted and did not award the try. Undeterred, Tawton kept up the pressure and they were awarded a penalty five metres out. Scrum half Peter Gyde took a quick tap and caught the defence napping to score a good individual try. The conversion by Honeychurch was again accurate and Tawton stretched the lead to 14-8. It was Gyde who got the last score of the match when Tawton, still on the offensive, forced a penalty from the defending Saracens team about 20 metres out. The kick to the posts was on target to give Tawton a winning score of 17-8. l This week North Tawton travel away to Torrington for another non-league fixture.
