NORTH TAWTON 7 - SOUTH MOLTON 15

NORTH Tawton will surely be glad that this was their last visit to South Molton this season as another lively encounter goes the way of the home team yet again.

It was a game of some good running rugby from both sides but also some poor discipline from certain players who gave the lady ref’s whistle and notebook plenty of extra work for the afternoon. One yellow for Tawts, three yellows and a red for South Molton tells its own story.

North Tawton started brightly enough from their own kick off down the hill and it looked for a while that it might be better fortunes ahead. Result wise it was just a few silly handling errors that needed to be ironed out for the Tawts to score.

Alas nobody told South Molton the plot, they were playing their normal power game using the weight advantage in the forwards to good effect, to score the first try of the match but a missed kick made the score 5-0 to Molton at half-time.

The second half started with another quick try from South Molton again missing the conversion to take the score to 10-0.

From the restart North Tawton pushed hard looking for their first score of the game which you felt they both needed and deserved to keep them in the game but things started to get a bit niggly, the ref giving a yellow apiece to both teams for a “handbag” moment so on we go with 14 aside.

South Molton faired the better with less players and scored their third try of the afternoon, with the kick missed the score now 15-0 in their favour.

At this stage of the game most neutrals would agree that nil didn’t reflect the effort put in by the Tawton side who were still working hard to change things around and with some good phases of play had Molton on the back foot getting late into the match. Unfortunately out come the handbags again and the ref sees fit to issue more cards, this time a red to South Molton’s no 8 plus another yellow for South Molton, now with numbers advantage Tawts did get over the try-line with a team try grounded by R Goss and the extras added by Will Lethbridge to make the final score 15-7.

James Millar was voted Man of the Match, well deserved.

Tomorrow, Saturday, November 12, sees the Tawts take on New Cross at home with a kick off at 2.30pm.

Chris Phare