IN their latest outing in the Devon Cup, Crediton’s U15 Girls welcomed Sidmouth and South Molton (who prefer to be known as SouthMouth) who combined once again to provide us with a great game.

Kirton started strong with early action which yielded a great try at five minutes. Fast runners who were held up just before the line, followed by strong forward action and a Chiefs-esque forward smash over the line.

The visitors responded with some inspired attacking and good ruck work. However, Kirton were able to dominate possession, through excellent counter rucking leading to turnovers and keeping our ball for many phases before finally moving the ball out to the speed merchants.

Kirton scored early in the second half, but S’Molton/Sidmouth refused to let their heads drop and came back fast with a strong attack.

They provided continued pressure from the restart and moved phase after phase down the field. Eventually they were rewarded with a five-metre lineout, this was stolen by Kirton, but knocked on. Playing advantage S’Molton/Sidmouth stormed through a sleepy defence and scored a well deserved try.

S’Molton/Sidmouth then provided an entertaining sprint as one player skinned almost every Kirton defender and zoomed off to the try line. Our never say die defenders sprinted at lung bursting pace but did not quite make it.

The game got tougher in the last quarter as S’Molton/Sidmouth presented a solid wall of defence. Kirton’s excellent phase work inched them back over the half-way line and eventually saw a break on the right wing leading to another score.

The SouthMolton/Sidmouth girls showed real spirit, they played hard all the way to the final whistle, and as so often in rugby, the small margins can lead to huge score differences attesting to the 50+-21.

Player of the match was Meika Hinds on left wing, it was a tough call as Katie Perryman on the right wing was also inspiring. Meika showed her usual tough and uncompromising nature on the pitch, nailing tackles, piling into rucks, and scorching the earth with her pace.

The highlight was a turnover tackle, she stole the ball off the attacker, ran into contact, a tight offload to a flanker, and then reading the flanker perfectly to receive the ball back and fire up the afterburners to mach 2.0 for another try.