NORTH TAWTON 20 - EXETER SARACENS 14

IT was hard enough to write down a few notes in the wet, the rain came down almost whistle-to-whistle - swap the ball for a bar of soap and you might get an idea of how difficult it was for either team to keep to the passing game that both were trying to play.

To both sides credit some good rugby was played out and two evenly matched sides went at it full-on, a few dropped balls along the way adding to the spectators ability to play better from the touch line - if only.

North Tawton took the lead with a try by Luke Dennis and a successful conversion by Alex Dennis making it 7-0 to the tawts.

We got to half-time spending most of the play after the Tawton try in the Tawton half, some good defending, and some handling errors by Exeter Sarries stopping them troubling the state-of-the-art Tawton score board.

The start of the second half saw the Sarries really push for some points of their own which came with a try and kick to level the score at 7-7.

As we have seen in the past the Tawts seem to get better the longer the game goes on and they soon retook the lead with a good try from Alex Dennis but, missing his kick, the score 12-7 was not enough at that stage.

Sarries took advantage of a poor clearance kick by the Tawton backs for a charge down and score under the posts making the score 14-12 in Sarries favour.

North Tawton dug deep and were soon up the Sarries end with a penalty kicked by Alex which gave them a one point lead at 15-14 - it’s tight, very tight and could go either way with some very nervous onlookers gnashing finger nails and words of wisdom etc.

The clock was ticking down and Tawts would have settle for a one point win right now but Sarries keep pushing all bodies forward looking to at least get in the Tawton half, a penalty would do it.

A good kick down field by the Tawts scrum-half well inside his own half releases the backs who take the hooker Matt Baker with them to score between the sticks making up for the 10 minutes in the bin he had earlier.

Final score North Tawton 20, Exeter Sarries 14. Another good game to watch. Man of the match was Tom Phillips who as always gave it everything in the front row to play “sexy” rugby (like the backs try to do), you need men like Tom for a sound base to build off.

Regular in the crowd this season was Dan Quinn - get your boots on Dan seems to be the feeling from the masses.

Chris Phare