Cornwall and Devon

NORTH DEVON 9

TORQUAY 13

NORTH Tawton’s winning start to the season came to an end at home to a well organised Torquay team who controlled the tempo of the game, seemingly at will.

With only one try the entire game, it was never going to be a contender for match of the season and will be remembered  for all the wrong reasons from the home side’s point of view. 

North Tawton started the game with key players missing for various reasons and lost key man Kev Dennis to a serious knee injury halfway through the game.

They started on the back foot with Torquay coming out of the blocks with real intent and it was not long before the visitors scored the only try of the match with the kick added for 0-7 to the visitors.

North Tawton set about trying to pick up the tempo as they like a fast running game, but Torquay used every chance to slow the game down.

With the help of some penalties Tawton came back to be 9-10 down at half time.

The second half was another helping of long delays abeit with a yellow card for Torquay.

As the game ground towards the closing quarter, a penalty to the visitors took the score to 9-13 which meant North Tawton needed at least a try to go in front and pinch the win; they set about this gusto and spend the final few minutes of the match almost camped on the Torquay 10 yard line. Credit to the away team but North Tawton just could not find a way through Jordan Cornthwaite was North Tawton’s man of the match.

This was the first loss of the season for North Tawton who pick up a valuable losing bonus point. North Tawton will have a good look at some aspects of this game and move on with they have some exciting challenges coming up and will need to field  their strongest side at every opportunity.