Western Counties West Kingsbridge 21

Tavistock 3

FROM the start the visitors struggled with ball in hand and invited pressure with the home side setting up camp in Tavistock's 22 but only determined defence and strong tackling kept them at bay. Smith organised the Tavistock pack around the base of the rucks to make sure space was limited. Tavistock began to gain confidence with Richard West pulling the strings and started moving forward. The lineout functioned well with James, Kaka and Wheatley combining fluently to provide clean ball for the backs. Tavistock used centres Lloyd and Gibbs well, who willingly ran hard but were always met with good resistance.

The visitors were gifted three points from the boot of West after Kingsbridge were penalised in the scrum. With both defences firmly on top the game was littered with errors. Tavistock lost promising new comer Cramoysan to a knee injury and had to reshuffle the back line.

Kingsbridge strung together good phases of play while Tavistock were guilty of ball watching and were heavily outnumbered on the flank. Good hands from the opposition resulted in a a score in the corner.

The home side used the bigger runners to break the game line. They kicked a penalty into the corner, from the lineout Tavistock did well to repel the driving maul but space opened up around the base and the scrum half squeezed over the white wash to make it 14-3 at half time.

The second half was a dreary affair. The errors kept coming and little ground was gained easily by either side. Tavistock work tirelessly in defence, turning the ball over repeatedly and winning penalties at the rucks. Unfortunately, these were often out of range and so Tavistock were forced to kick for territory. Kingsbridge delivered a flowing move, down the slope from left to right and the winger had enough space to score in the corner.

In the final stages, Tavistock suffered another blow when Dan Oner was involved in a collision and looks to have suffered neck damage. The match was abandon and Dan was flown to hospital, The club send their thoughts and best wishes to Dan and his family for a speedy recovery.

n This week Tavistock face Okehampton at home, kick-off 3pm.