Crediton U16 40 - Brixham U16 7

THE Under 16s put in a solid performance to gain a relatively comfortable win against Brixham in a Fishermens Shield Round 1 game.

That said, it was not until the latter stages that we pulled away sufficiently to feel comfortable.

It was a bit of a stop start game littered with penalties with both sides guilty of infringing.

However, the two teams attempted to play some good rugby despite the windy conditions.

The Crediton scrum was certainly dominant although lineouts were something of a lottery at times.

The opening minutes were end to end and the opening score came on 10 minutes when Zac Blewett used his power to drive over the line from a quick tap penalty.

Six minutes later and Crediton conceded a free kick at a scrum which Brixham then tried to run.

Crediton fly half Ollie Harris intercepted a pass and raced home from half way, he then added the extras for a 12-0 lead.

Play continued to be dominated by defences but penalties, free kicks and scrums were preventing the game from flowing.

The third try came on the half hour mark when a lineout was won, somewhat untidily, but a long pass from Harris created space but the visiting defence managed to cover.

The resulting maul ended with Haydon Vooght forcing his way over. Harris converted for 19-0.

Brixham responded quickly and from the restart, we set up a driving maul before releasing the backs.

However, the visitors line speed was up to the challenge and the ball went loose in the tackle before being kicked ahead by their centre.

Although we won the footrace, the ball went loose and Brixham pounced for their try which was converted for a half time score of 19-7.

We conceded a penalty right from the restart when the clearance kick saw players in front of the kicker filing to retreat, a law change the season which has yet to sink in as it caught both sets of players out on a number of occasions.

Both sides were also experiencing difficulties in releasing the ball when tackled as well as the tackler failing to release the tackled player and in the opening five minutes of the second period several penalties had been conceded by both sides.

On 45 minutes Crediton extended the lead when, from a five metre scrum, the ball came to replacement fly half George Blackburn who went over, he landed the conversion for 26-7.

Another penalty on half way and we opted to run and some slick handling and good support looked to have earned a really good try but the final pass was adjudged forward and the try was chalked off.

As the game entered the final 10 minutes, it was Logan Holden who evaded a couple of tackles to score, Blackburn converting.

Blackburn then completed the scoring with a try and conversion in the last moments for a 40-7 win.

Brixham were to be commended for trying to run the ball out of defence but invariably were caught on or around their “22” and forced to resort to kicking only for Crediton to run it back at them.

Crediton adopted the more pragmatic approach of clearing their lines and playing the game in the right areas.

Paul Harris