Teignmouth 17 - 41 Thornbury

Teignmouth’s difficult start to life in South West 1 continued with a comprehensive home defeat against Thornbury from Gloucestershire.

Coach Simon Morrell believes that there are three mini-leagues within this division, and that Thornbury are one of the four or clubs that will be challenging for promotion to the National Leagues come the end of April. He was, therefore, less disappointed by this result than by the previous two against Newent and Wells.

Indeed, for much of the first half the Teigns gave as good as they got, despite conceding an early try to full back Sam Higgins. Centre Billy Massingham slotted a 26th minute penalty to reduce the arrears, and Morrell would have been delighted that his side were only two points down after 39 minutes.

The home side could have been in front as poor handling errors meant that a couple of try-scoring opportunities went begging, and they were made to regret such profligacy as Thornbury turned the screw in injury time to score twice and put themselves almost out of sight.

First Teignmouth were forced to concede a penalty-try as the visitors’ scrum, which was dominant all afternoon, threatened a pushover. Then Higgins scored his second try with the final move before the interval, and to rub salt into the wounds he converted both.

But Teignmouth were not downhearted, and came storming back into the match straight from the kick-off as Rob Parsons took a great catch from the re-start, drove into the visitors’ 22 and then offloaded to his back row partner Jake Bury for the Teigns’ first try.

Unfortunately it was a false dawn, as the Gloucestershire pack increased their dominance and the home side started to show a lack of discipline again. Within 20 minutes Thornbury were away over the horizon as number 8 Jack Hussey mauled the ball over the line twice from lineouts, Higgins added a conversion and a penalty, and Ronnie Kelly found himself in the sin-bin for ten minutes.

Thornbury still had time to add a fifth try as lock Boris Elloff-Petros found himself collecting a Crossfield kick on the wing, although there was an element of obstruction which the referee missed. Again Higgins converted to take his personal tally to 21 points.

However Teignmouth showed some real spirit in the last ten minutes, laying siege to the Thornbury line despite again being down to 14 men as Jack Darragh collected his second yellow card of the season. Their effort paid off as new boy Danny Luffman forced his way over in the corner, and stalwart Dan Force kicked the conversion from the touchline.

Morrell admitted that there will be more difficult afternoons like this, but said that he feels there are enough beatable teams in the league to give the Teigns a decent chance of retaining their place. Unfortunately, this week’s opponents Camborne probably belong in the same mini-league as Thornbury, and so the long trip down to Cornwall will be yet another huge challenge.

If you want to see some live rugby before the big World Cup match between England and Wales, you can either book a seat on the coach to Camborne by contacting Nicola Roberts on the club’s Facebook page (Teignmouth Rfc) or you can watch the Seconds play at home against OPMs, kick-off 3pm.