Tavistock Colts 43

Teignmouth Colts 10

Tavistock RFC Colts (U18s) have moved to the top of the Devon Shield Merit table after winning on Saturday against Teignmouth.

The first exchanges against Teignmouth resulted in a series of scrums as Tavistock found good field position but initially could not hang onto the ball in slippery conditions. Set pieces throughout were evenly contested with neither side making much inroad but after ten minutes Will Slater made the breakthrough for the home team as the tenacious flanker popped up in midfield and broke through the defence with a sidestep and jinking run.

Ethan Lamerton was called up for his Colts debut to replace centre Luke Northmore who was called up for first team duties. Ethan and Tom Wheeler led the defensive line and Ethan took a well timed pass from fly-half Harvey Curtin and sprinted in for a try.

The impressive Tavistock backrow worked effectively to win the tackle and ruck contest and Charlie Fethney again snaffled turnover ball to feed hooker Angus Hogg, who beat two defenders to crash over.

Theo Cousins, Cameron McKie and Richard Cann also made debuts in the pack and their presence enabled flyer Adam Williams with a further opportunity to put Tavistock 20 points up at half time.

The second half started well for the home side after Jono Wisdom kicked a perfect restart to force a handling error. A Will Slater handoff cleared a path to the try line. Jono added the conversion.

Teignmouth worked hard to nullify the Tavistock attacks and a solid work and a defensive lapse saw them score outwide; this was closely followed by a second.

Tavistock only hung onto their lead through hard graft upfront from Charlie Davies and Seb Cox. With five minutes to go, captain Sam Smith took the ball in the line out and Alex Lewandow-ski distributed quickly wide for Williams to go over again.

The final move of the game came after Joe Sellars ripped the ball from the Teignmouth centre and burst forward before handing onto Tom Wheeler, who dummied the full back to score under the posts to give Tavistock a convincing win.