Tiverton's lead reduced
5:32pm Tuesday 28th March 2006
Cornwall and Devon League Devonport Services 27pts, Tiverton 20 This 27-20 loss in Plymouth cut Tiverton's lead at the top of the table to two points, and enabled the young Services side to leapfrog Falmouth into second place.
It was a rearranged Tiverton side that headed down to Plymouth for this vital clash, with key backs Barney Bell and Martin Branton both unavailable through leg injuries, Bell's sustained during the last match, Branton's through a farming accident involving cattle the previous morning.
The game kicked off with Services having use of the substantial wind for the first half, and soon made their intentions clear with a series of long kicks keeping Tiverton pinned in their half for most of the opening spell.
After only five minutes, their right wing crossed for the opening score of the match, which was watched with disbelief from both sets of supporters as the centre seemed to get his feet tangled and inadvertently took out the Tiverton defenders off the ball, leaving a clear run in for the try, which was converted.
Tiverton managed to get back into the match with some good counterattacking moves of their own, and on 26 minutes were awarded a penalty to register their first points for the afternoon through the boot of fly-half Steve Cockram, followed by another just before the break.
At half-time, Tiverton looked the more composed, keeping the Services' backs contained with strong midfield tackling from skipper Graham Broom, and excellent driving play from number eight Henry Weekes.
The second half saw Tiverton use the wind, and it was the home side's turn to defend, but Tiverton were unable to take anything from the first 20 minutes.
When Services received the kick-off after converting a penalty, and immediately broke out, their backs, who had looked dangerous all afternoon scored an excellent try to take the score to 20-6, giving the visitors a mountain to climb.
Tiverton struck back in the best possible way, driving straight back from the kickoff, kicked for the corner, and forced an error off the Services lineout. From the scrum, flanker Graham Willis was driven over for a converted try.
Minutes later, poor tackling saw the Services' impressive open side into uncharacteristic gaps in the Tiverton defence, and feed his grateful centres who put their winger in under the posts for another converted try.
Tiverton lifted themselves for the final 10 minutes, and a strong break by winger Andy Brookes saw the forwards metres out from the Services line before Weekes got the final try.
Tiverton coach Zane McCormack told the Star that although he felt there was good play from his team he was disappointed with the result: "From a purely neutral point of view this would have been a great match to watch, the two best teams in the league playing good positive rugby, with only a controversial score to separate them.
"Unfortunately I'm not a neutral, and it's always hard to come away from matches that could have so easily gone our way, but didn't because of a handful of silly errors.
"While the referee was gracious enough to say he didn't see the interference resulted in the first try, he also said that he was disappointed that there weren't the number of officials available to run touch at this level for these sort of games.
"But although that try ultimately proved to be the difference between us today, the ref certainly didn't miss those tackles that put them in for their other two scores, and this was probably the most disappointing thing about the whole match.
"We now have three games left in the season, and with our lead down to just two points a single victory we can't afford to drop another.
"We have another visit to Plymouth against OPMs then a week off before welcoming Falmouth to our place, and round off the season with a trip to Wellington."
Concerning the injury inflicted on Martin Branton, he said: "Losing key players to injury as we did was a blow, and although we expect injuries picked up on the pitch, those inflicted by livestock are a bit much."
McCormack explained that it was not the first such injury, as Matt Lewis had been similarly hurt a couple of months ago.
"I'd be a lot happier if they just got rid of the cows, and went into arable farming, or at least something a bit less dangerous to handle, like chickens!" he added.