Western Counties League

Tavistock 19

Minehead Barbarians 5

TAVISTOCK RFC completed their home league campaign with a comfortable if unspectacular victory against Minehead on Saturday.

This victory guarantees Tavistock will not finish in the bottom two of the Western Counties League and could see them safe from relegation. Whether third from bottom is enough may depend on what happens further up the league structure when all the promotion play offs are complete.

But Tavistock still have their destiny in their own hands to climb further up the table as they still have two fixtures remaining, one at Okehampton this coming Saturday and a final fixture at Devonport Services the week after.

Forwards Mark Kerswill, Andy Hunt, and the entire back row of Will Brown, Duncan Law and captain Jake Phillips dominated the forward exchanges throughout the game and provided sufficient possession for the home side to have won by a far larger margin. But at combination of bad option taking, mistakes and some resilient Minehead defence kept the score to closer than it should have been.

Early pressure by Tavistock provided the chance for Richard West to secure the lead but his first two penalty attempts were wide of the mark.

Tavistock did eventually get on the score board when after Alex Moy had broken from an attacking scrum Jake Phillips linked to provide Duncan Law with a scoring pass with Richard West adding the extras. There was no further score before half time and in fact at the end of the half Minehead forced their way deep into Tavistock territory to test the home defence.

Early in the second half Tavy had a chance to extend their lead from a five metre scrum but Jake Phillips knocked on when attempting to ground the ball.

They did extend their lead soon after lead when centre Lawrence Evans rolled out of a tackle on his way to score, West converted.

Minehead soon after got onto the score sheet when right winger Mike Hutchings was worked clear to score.

The score remained at 14-7 until the final 15 minutes when the excellent Alex Moy broke on the blind side from a scrum, found Miles Ross in support who provided the scoring pass for full back Danny Luffman. James Kaminski missed the conversion.