Honiton Colts 7 Okehampton Colts 76 OKEHAMPTON Colts travelled to Honiton for this latest merit table fixture and playing with the slope the visitors commanded possession from the early stages with a constant stream of quality ruck ball allowing the backs to make good ground. Rory Honeychurch ran the angles particularly well in mid field, allowing wingers Chisolm and Wawman to threaten. Despite this expansive play it was prop Martin Moyse who crashed his way over for the first try after a series of driving mauls. Rob Long was beginning to look particularly threatening at No 8 and it wasn?t long before he took a crash ball from a ruck to break several tackles to score the first of his three tries. Returning to the expansive game the ball was moved wide for both Jake Chisolm and full back Rob Fishleigh to score from wide positions. The forwards were also putting possession to good use with the line-out looking particularly effective ? with some excellent throwing from Tom Richards. Luke Crocker was the beneficiary of a good catch and drive when he came out of the resulting maul to score the first of his two tries. Honiton are a young and inexperienced Colts side but to their credit put in a spirited performance. Their efforts were rewarded with an excellent breakaway try that went through several pairs of hands and with great pace took them the length of the pitch. The Okes finished the first half with a try from close range for Tom Richards. In the second half playing up the slope and with a number of team changes the Okes, while still dominating play, lost some of their first half shape and with slow ruck ball were finding it more difficult to break down Honiton?s spirited defence. When they did re-establish the right patterns of play they scored the best try of the match with both forwards and backs combining well to see Carl Poynton finish well in the corner although he was unfortunately injured from the last ditch tackle and was unable to take any further part in the game. Further tries came from John Grayling and two from Carl Goodall. Ivybridge Colts 24 Tavistock Colts 11 TAVISTOCK were slow to get started and found it hard to get out of their own half but defended well out wide against some strong attacks by Ivybridge left wing. After defending for 15 minutes Tavistock gave away a penalty which Ivybridge converted. From the restart Ivybridge ran the ball back and Tavistock were back on the defence and tackling well but on the 25 minute pressure told and the Ivybridge centre found a gap and scored close to the posts which made the conversion easy for their winger. This restart was chased well by Paddy Warlow and Tavistock were at last on the attack. Some great rucking forced Ivybridge to concede a penalty which Andrew Smerdon converted. After a touchline incident Josh O?Neil spent the next ten minutes in the bin. From the line out Ivybridge scored bringing the half time score to 17-3. Tavistock came back well in the second and some variation in the line out gave the backs some quicker ball which centre Jack Hodges carried well across the gain line. Again Ivybridge were penalised for hands in the ruck and Rob Milligan kicked the penalty to reduce the gap to 17-6. Tavistock man of the match Hammy Kerswill put in some great tackles and cleaned up scrappy ball on the floor but Tavistock could not break down the opposition defence. With 10 minutes left to play Ivybridge broke through and scored which they converted. The Ivybridge winger tried to run out from his own try line but got tackled well in the centre which forced a knock on from the scrum. Fly half Andrew Smerdon went blind and passed to Freddy O?Connor-Thompson on the wing; Andrew looped him took the return pass and scored in the corner.
