Cornwall and Devon Tavistock 15

Liskeard-Looe 11

TAVISTOCK failed to reach the heights of two weeks ago, when they demolished the then top of the league, Honiton. However, despite this, they scrapped out their 20th victory on the bounce, which at times during the match looked much in doubt.

The home side lacked the usual concentration and focus and from the kick-off Liskeard gave little respect for league leaders Tavistock, as their physical forwards took control in all the early exchanges showing a greater hunger and desire.

The weather conditions did not help Tavistock's cause, as their backs struggled to play their normal free running style. In the opening quarter of an hour, Tavistock's defence did, with Mark Friend in particular, put in a superb defensive effort all game against Liskeard's strong running back-row.

After these early exchanges Tavistock briefly awoke and started to play some of their normal patterns of play. With the forwards offering the half-backs decent options, with strong runners in Duncan Law, Andrew Schuttkacker and Mark Friend all putting in a solid shift. The Tavistock play brought them to within 10 metres of the try line and with the Liskeard defence stretched, Andrew Schuttkacker was able to snipe down the side of a Tavistock ruck to dive under the posts; West converted to make it 7-0 to Tavistock.

Tavistock fielded the following restart and set about returning to the Liskeard 22 in quick fashion, with strong runs made by the powerful paring of Doug Lloyd and Ross Batten in the centre. With Tavistock finally in their grove, their forwards powered their way to the try line under the excellent guidance of Jared Smith, only to be stopped on the line.

Liskeard worked their way into the Tavistock half with strong running by their forwards close to the breakdown. Eventually Tavistock were penalised for offside and Liskeard took their chance for three points, to make it 7-3 at half-time.

Liskeard started the second half where they had left off, using their strong forward runners and driving maul to great effect. It was one of these powerful driving mauls that saw Liskeard go ahead 8-7. Tavistock needed to dig deep, but with hard work at the breakdown, in particular by Duncan Law, they worked their way back into Liskeard territory. With the help of Liskeard's inability to remain onside, the penalty count began to mount up and eventual Tavistock were in range of the sticks for Richard West to restore the Tavistock advantage, 10-8.

An obstruction at the side of the ruck gave the visitors a penalty and 10-11 to Liskeard.

With ten minutes to go Tavistock drew upon their experience and their players appeared to go into auto-pilot as the scrums started to become more solid, passes were going to hand and the decision making was spot on. As the ball was freed from one of the many scrums and fed to the backs, Tavistock's flying full-back, Dan Luffman found a gap to exploit in the opposition defence and managed to offload to Dan Cunningham to score in the far corner to give Tavistock the toughest of victories, 15-11.

A special mention has to go to the players that were drafted in from the second team - John Bellamy, Will Tomkins, Hammy Kerswill and Jake Chinn who all did themselves justice.

After the match the huge relief of attaining victory and clear disappointment in performance was quickly replaced by elation, as news reached the Tavistock changing room that second place Honiton had lost and now could not catch Tavistock in the league – Tavistock are the new Devon and Cornwall league champions!