NEW CROSS 18

NORTH TAWTON 14

NORTH Tawton A team opened up their 2016 league campaign with an away loss as hosts New Cross showed their improvement from the home fixture earlier in the season.

With horizontal rain welcoming both sides in to a warm up, referee Louis Lloyd brought the kick off forward, much to the delight of both sides and supporters.

The game started in quite dramatic fashion as one of the many predicted spilt passes was fly hacked forward by Alex Dennis for Toby Howard to chase and pounce scoring his first try for the Tawts within the first 10 minutes. Dennis converted.

Cross hit back almost immediately however as Kerswill was caught offside in midfield and Ryan Wotton capitalised as his penalty goal clipped the crossbar before going over.

New Cross showed their dominance up front by scoring a pushover try from short range shortly after to go into a 8-7 lead.

The Tawts were not helped by the injury of Quinn who suffered a knock to the ankle and later conceded another try before half-time making the score 15-7.

The second half started very much as a stalemate with both sides obtaining turnover ball to play with but to little success as the conditions told.

With 20 minutes to go New Cross’s hooker was sent to the bin for retaliation and North Tawton’s pack surprisingly came to life as their driving maul game came into play resulting in Dan Bennet bundling over for his debut try.

A further Wotton penalty pulled Cross further away but with the Tawton scrum functioning better and their free running backs receiving more front football the Mid Devonians felt the game was still there for the taking.

Time was against them however as one final turnover was tucked up the New Cross shirts and not obtained back, grinding out a well-deserved victory for the new look south Devon outfit.

MK