Plympton Victoria 10 Topsham 27

The first team visited Plympton Victoria in their first Devon 2 league fixture of the season. There were plenty of unforced errors in this match but coach Trevor Harris will be pleased with the result and a better team performance.

Seb Stewart on his first outing of the season scored two tries from driving mauls from line outs within the Plympton twenty-two. Mitchell Ocholla then scored form a period of pressure when after good forward work the ball was released wide for the try. Unfortunately, with all three tries scored out wide, none of the tries were converted.

The Plympton No 8, who was always a problem when in possession of the ball, scored an unconverted try.

Terence Byrne, who came on at scrum half at half time in a re-shuffle, caused problems for the home defence and made a break to score. George York converted.

Plympton replied again when their No 8 scored his second try from a rolling maul of a lineout.

Phil Irish who had moved to wing in the second half scored the last try of the day after a good passage of play.

Trevor Harris named centre Nathan Mayne and prop forward Peter Fitzsimmons as his men of the match. Trevor said that the he was pleased with the overall performance after the disappointment of the previous week, but that opportunities were missed that will need to be taken in closer matches.

Men of the match: Nathan Mayne and Pete Fitzsimmons 

Topsham 2^nd XV 70 v Bideford 3^rd XV 0

This Devon Merit Table N/E 3 fixture turned into a bit of a romp for the 2^nd XV

The second team has been strengthened by several new players this season and this can only bode well for the future. Although under pressure in the scrums they got off to an excellent start scoring 3 tries and one conversion in the first 10 minutes. The Bideford side, which included three Topsham players, were generally older (two were over 50) then our team and were unable to cope with the speed of our backs. After 20 minutes and the score already over 30 points a request was made by Bideford to reduce the time to 30 minutes each way and Captain James Clark accepted this. The half time score was 39-0. 

Bideford played well in the first part of the second half, but soon the effective ball carrying of Liam Bulley started to create large gaps in the opposition defence for the backs to run in more tries. Hooker Maciej Samujlo, made several good runs and from one of these he scored a try, which he converted himself from in front of the posts. In the end the score was 70-0 with top scorer with six tries, Martyn Richards, being named man of the match by an over the moon new captain James Clark.

Tries: - M Richards (6), B Moor (2), M Tilt (2), W Maliszewski (1) and M Samujlo (1)

Conversions: - M Tilt (4) M Samujlo (1)