Devon one

New Cross 18

North Tawton 14

NORTH Tawton opened up their 2016 league campaign with an away loss as hosts New Cross showed their improvement from the home fixture earlier in the season.

With horizontal rain welcoming both sides in to a warm up, referee Louis Lloyd brought the kick-off forward, much to the delight of both sides and supporters.

The game started in quite dramatic fashion as one of the many predicted spilt passes was fly hacked forward after 10 minutes by Alex Dennis for Toby Howard to chase and pounce, scoring his first try for Tawton. Dennis converted.

However, New Cross hit back almost immediately as Kerswill was caught offside in midfield and Ryan Wotton capitalised as his penalty goal clipped the crossbar before going over.

New Cross showed their dominance up front by scoring a pushover try from short range shortly after, to go into a 8-7 lead. North Tawton though were not helped by the injury of Quinn, who suffered a knock to the ankle. They conceded another try before half time to make it 15-7 to the home side.

The second half started as a stalemate with both sides obtaining turnover ball to play with but to little success as the conditions took their toll.

With 20 minutes to go New Cross’s hooker was sent to the bin for retaliation and North Tawton’s pack came to life as their driving maul game came into play, resulting in Dan Bennet bundling over for his debut try.

A further Wotton penalty pulled New Cross further away but with the Tawton scrum functioning better and their free running backs receiving more front foot ball, the mid Devonians felt the game was still there for the taking. Time was against them, however, as one final turnover was ground out for a well deserved victory for the new look south Devon outfit.