Tavistock girls U18s 10

Exeter Saracens girls U18s 48

EXETER Saracens cut through the Tavistock girls' lines and gave them a lesson in accurate passing and hard running. They scored eight tries by intricate passing, creating space and their speedy wingers outpacing the Tavistock defence. Tavistock replied with two well engineered tries.

From the kick-off, a fumbled catch allowed Exeter to ruck over, secure the ball and pass out to the wing. Only a flying tackle from Annabel Longden stopped the certain try. Exeter recycled the ball to their prop who broke through the stretched Tavistock defence to score.

This was a ten-a-side match with great width allowing a fast open game in which Exeter excelled. Their flowing recycling game was made to look more skillful by some indecisive tackling by the Tavistock team.

Tries came mainly from breakaway ball, with the attackers outpaced the defence. Towards the end of the first half, Tavistock responded well to keep Exeter at bay for long periods of the game. They were even looked like turning the game around with Bronwyn Rundle breaking through the lines and Tavistock's improved off-loading resulted in an excellent team try by Lizzie Crocker.

The improvement vanished with the injury to prop, Kim Upcott and Exeter came back with three quick tries at the beginning of the second half.

Time and time again Tavistock came forward, tried several novel set pieces, and succeeded again with Flo Rodgers creating the chance from a ruck. The ball passed through several hands including Fen Eastaugh and Jess Tait, for Annabel Longden to score in the dying minutes.

Hannah Morris made some try-saving tackles and Maddie Cinnamond is starting to work well in the forwards.

Tavistock will learn from from this match particularly in defence, but a full team match may have had a more positive outcome for Tavistock as they were clearly winning the battle 'up-front'.