Western Counties West

Tavistock 8

Okehampton 27

FOLLOWING the resounding win at St Ives last week the Okes consolidated their league position with this comprehensive five try victory over a tenacious but lack-lustre Tavistock side.

With just three minutes on the clock a superb Oke attacking move down the right saw fly-half Rhys Palmer ghost his way over the whitewash with the Tavistock defence in ribbons. The conversion sailed wide.

The next 15 minutes were fairly evenly contested although the Okes' backline were showing far more penetration than their opponents. Prominent in this was fullback Gareth Espin who had another good game. Play was becoming broken with neither side taking control of proceedings.

Tavistock earned a five metre scrum which was well defended by the Oke eight. After 25 minutes, with Oke pressing hard, the ball fell to player/coach Gaz Evans 25 metres from the Tavistock line in centre field. With a quick look at what was in front of him Evans put in four superb sidesteps/ dummies and in the blink of an eye was touching down. Again the conversion was missed.

Tavistock never really recovered from this setback although Richard Goldsby-West did slot a three pointer after Oke were infringed at a tackle. A couple of minutes later Oke were denied a third try by a forward pass.

With the half-time whistle imminent Evans was shown a yellow card and despite their man advantage Oke defended their line well as the half time score stood at 10-3 to the visitors.

The Okes began the second half as they had finished the first. Prominent throughout the game was hooker Chris Knott who had another barnstorming game and was man of the match. Two quick tries followed. After a well controlled rolling-maul centre Luke Honeychurch was given the touch down.

Play then became scrappy. The old adage that it does not matter how much possession you get, it's what you do with it, applied to Tavistock. With the pressure from the Oke defence, they seemed to find it impossible to string more than three passes together while the Oke threes always looked threatening.

Lewis Taylor ran a splendid inside line to set up the supporting Gareth Espin for another well executed Oke try converted by Lewis himself. With the score at 3- 22 Tavi missed a penalty in front of the posts but shortly after scored their only try of the match when winger Ben Hadfield went over.

Oke had two more men sent to the sin bin in the final quarter but never really looked in trouble thanks to their well organised defence.

The final five minutes saw the Okes, with their superior fitness, really take the game to Tavistock.

A superb scrum with Langy and Knotty in the van pushed the Tavistock eight backwards at an alarming rate and when the scrum was reset Tavistock were judged to have infringed and a penalty try was awarded by regular referee Ian Freestone to end the match.