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North Tawton 12

Tavistock seconds 26

FOR the second week in a row North Tawton's riverside Centenary pitch came into its own on Saturday allowing this match to go ahead when most pitches were unplayable.

A first opportunity to open the scoring fell to Tavistock after seven minutes of competitive play, but the penalty attempt was pulled wide.

Several phases of good play by the Tawton pack took them into Tavistock territory. They were starting to dominate the set scrums and a superb break by flanker Mike Young almost led to a try. Another good run, this time by full back Will Lethbridge kept up the pressure and fly half Jamie Stevens completed the job with a try under the posts, which he duly converted.

The match was evenly contested in a spell of end to end play with some good rugby being played by both sides. A telling break by Tavistock fly half Richard West fed the ball to Lewis Edwards on the right wing and his pace took him through for a well taken try. The conversion missed leaving the scores at 7-5 to Tawton. Having breached Tawton's defence Tavistock kept up the pressure and should have extended their score with several penalty opportunities. However, they declined the kicks and opted to play the ball allowing Tawton to defend well and keep their narrow lead until half time.

Tavistock had the better of the early play in the second half and their territorial dominance led to two tries. There was a second try for the impressive Edwards and one for centre Greg Moore, both converted by fly half West, to take Tavy into a 19-7 lead.

Having made a number of substitutions after the break North Tawton seemed to lose their focus. They made a mini comeback with some positive play by the pack but were let down by a number of handling errors. One of these gave the ball into the hands of Tavistock's lively Edwards who went over for his hat trick of tries, converted by West.

North Tawton staged a late revival and somewhat against the run of play scrambled a try for number eight Steve King, assisted by prop Dave Gibbs. The move was initiated by centres Tom Chisholm and Tom Davis down the right flank and the ball was moved across the field for the forwards to pile over in the left corner. The conversion from wide out missed leaving the final score at 26-12 to Tavistock.