Plympton walloped 87-0

Devon One North and East League

Plympton Victoria 0

THE second phase of the league this season finds North Tawton matched against several of the sides from last season's league, including the Plymouth teams.

For their first match, North Tawton met Plympton Victoria and scored an easy victory. In their encounter last year it was Plympton who were victorious by 13-3.

From the start North Tawton were on the offensive, drawing Plympton Victoria offside and gaining penalties. The second of these gave David Fewings his first points of the match with a kick from 25 metres.

A good spell of 15-man rugby brought Tawton back on the attack.

A well-timed missed pass from Fewings put full-back Bill Sharp through for his debut try for the club, taking the home side to 8-0.

Shortly after the restart a break by Rob North at inside centre opened up the defence and the feed to supporting flanker Paul Turner saw him side-step the last defender for a try.

It was Turner who was in the right place again for the next try, started by a break off the back of a scrum by number eight, Steve King.

Some good handling going down the narrow side ended with a pass inside to Turner to score his second.

The conversion missed but Tawton were building a lead at 18-0. From a scrum on Tawton's 22 metre line, the ball was chipped ahead and picked up by centre North.

He fed it back to his scrum half Alex Dennis who had the pace to outrun the defence and score his first try, converted by Fewings.

The North Tawton pack was starting to dominate the set scrums, pushing Plympton back at a rate of knots and disrupting what ball they were getting.

It was from a lineout, however, that the next score came.As the ball was fed out along the three-quarter line, David Fewings collected a pass, coming in at pace and broke the defensive line to go in under the posts for the try, giving himself a straightforward conversion.

The next score came from a kick ahead by Sharp, which threw the Plympton defence into confusion. The loose ball was snapped up by Alex Dennis who broke through for his second try, converted by Fewings.

The last try of the half was a gem from hooker Alfie May, collecting a ball tapped down from a lineout and breaking around the back of the line.

He threaded his way through the defenders, breaking any tackles and sprinting to the line under the posts to give Fewings another easy shot to convert, taking the half time score to 44-0.

The opening score of the second half was also down to May as he broke away from a maul and made it to the Plympton 22 metre line before passing out to Turner, once again supporting in just the right place.

Tawton's player/coach ran in for his hat-trick try, and a jug of lager for his team.

Shortly after this a Tawton attack broke down in the Plympton half, but they recovered the advantage and the ball was moved out to the left wing where full back Sharp was on hand to complete the run to the line for his second try.

Fewings converted well from out wide to take the score to 58-0.

The next two tries for Tawton came from the strong running of fly-half Simon Quick. For the first he broke from about half-way and put in three hand-offs to fend off the defending tackles and go all the way to the line for a converted try.

The second came from a tap-and-go penalty taken quickly by Tawton's captain Keith Jones, who had moved in to the scrum half position.

The pass to Quick found him caught up in a group of defenders but he had the strength to break away and run through for his second, unconverted try.

The Plympton defensive line was creaking as Tawton continued their pressure. Another break from about half-way, this time by Fewings at outside centre, led to a try which he converted.

A scrum inside Plympton's 22 metre area was pushed back by Tawton and the scrambled pass back to the full back went loose.

Keith Jones was there to touch down but the try was disallowed for and earlier knock-on.

The final tries came appropriately for the scrum, capitalising on their dominance over a tiring Plympton pack. The first came for second row Ian Perrott, breaking off the back of a maul to go down the blind side and make the touchdown.

The second was a straight eight-man set scrum from 10 metres out, pushing Plympton back over their line to give number eight Steve King the touchdown.

This made the final score 87-0 to the home side.

To give Plympton Victoria their due they were game to the end and did not give up, even though they were outplayed in all areas of the match.

The Tawton squad were delighted to notch up their second high-scoring match in consecutive weeks.

Graham King