Penzance Pirates Amateurs 37 Teignmouth 15

After two comfortable victories thoughts at Bitton Park were starting to turn to the possibility of a promotion campaign this season. Perhaps it was rather premature to be thinking this way, especially when faced with the long trip to Penzance to confront a club who have links with a Championship side, and the Cornishmen duly put Teignmouth’s excellent early season results into some perspective

Nevertheless, the Teigns made a great start to the game, with winger Chris Tidman running in his first try of the season in the 8th minute. But if this gave the visitors the impression that they were in for another easy win against Cornish opponents, they were soon disabused of this notion.

The Amateurs hit back quickly to take the lead, firstly with a penalty from Westren, and shortly afterwards with a try from captain Heath which Westren also converted.

However, Teignmouth were controlling the set-pieces as they had done in the previous two weeks, and after half an hour they regained the lead with a pushover try touched down by No. 8 John Drew. Full back Dan Force added the two points to send the Teigns into the interval leading 12-10.

Unfortunately for the visitors, their supremacy did not last long into the second half, as the Pirates scored four more tries through Kent, Eddy, Dougdale and skipper Heath with his second of the game. Westren managed two conversions and a penalty, while all Teignmouth could muster was a Force penalty.

Afterwards Teigns’ skipper Colin Ashworth admitted that there had been a touch of over-confidence amongst the squad after their splendid start to the season. The players and the management will now have a clearer idea of what faces them if they are to mount a sustained push for promotion. There is little doubt that Penzance are a young and highly talented squad with ambitions to catch the eye of the management of their senior squad, so a defeat, even one of these dimensions, to such a team should be seen as a reality check, rather than a dent to ambitions.

This Saturday sees Teignmouth hope to return to winning ways at Bitton Park with a match against newly-promoted Plymouth Barbarians, kick off 3pm.