Teignmouth 47 Penzance Pirates Amateurs 12

“Phenomenal!” That was coach Simon Morrell’s verdict on Teignmouth’s latest impressive victory in their charge towards promotion. It was hard to disagree with Morrell as the Teigns’ forwards put in yet another immense performance, backed up by the flair and tenacious tackling of the backs.

It was to the credit of the club’s members that the match went ahead when most of the other matches in the league were postponed. Several worked hard throughout the morning to mop up the puddles, and even some of first players to arrive were roped in to help. The players of both sides should also be congratulated for coping so well in conditions that were far from ideal.

Pirates Amateurs made the long trip from Penzance but showed no ill-effects from the journey as they were out of the blocks more quickly than the home side. A series of powerful surges from the visitors’ forwards saw Teignmouth’s defence creak and resulted in prop Dan Lugg forcing his way over the line to open the scoring in the 8th minute.

The Teigns have become used to scoring early themselves, but they were not fazed by this early upset and within 10 minutes had taken the lead with two forward tries from hooker Pete Parsons and back row replacement Jake Allison.

Last week’s Cup match was notable in that, although Teignmouth won, top scorer Will Sowden failed to get his name on the scoresheet. Well, that was never going to happen two weeks running, and sure enough Sowden managed to get on the end of yet another relentless forward move to crash through the Pirates’ defence, allowing Dan Force to kick the conversion.

At this stage both sides got a bit of a reality check – many observers feel that in this league referees are a little lax when it comes to punishing persistent offences, especially killing the ball. Well last week’s ref, Sarah Cox, has experience at far higher levels of the pyramid than this, and four yellow cards, three for the Pirates and one for the Teigns, left the players in no doubt about their responsibilities.

Strangely the home side were not able to capitalise on their numerical advantage, apart from one Dan Force penalty. But with Teigns’ skipper Colin Aldworth in the sin bin, the visitors took advantage with a strange try; Rhys Brownfield miscued his drop goal attempt and winger Ryan Forrester was more alert than the defence and touched down near the posts. Brownfield added the conversion.

For a short while, this put Teignmouth on the back foot, but just on half-time Sowden popped up on halfway to intercept a pass, and in a foot race with several Cornish defenders there was only ever going to be one winner. Force’s conversion made the half-time score 27-12 in favour of the home side.

There was a feeling among the spectators that with a bonus point in the bag from that fourth try, it would be plain sailing in the second half for the Teigns, and so it proved. Although the Pirates never laid down, and did, at times, threaten the Teignmouth line, the strength and organisation of the home forwards , led by Ashworth, prop George Mowson and number 8 Jamie Gray continually punched holes in their defences, allowing Sowden to add two more tries and Force and half-back Neil Johns one each.

At the end of the match Morrell felt that this was probably the most complete performance of the season from his team. He was particularly pleased at how well the side had coped from going behid so easily, and gave praise to the Pirates for having provided his players with a proper test, something that many of the weaker teams in the league have failed to do this season.

Because of Cup commitments and postponed matches Teignmouth have slipped behind St Ives into second place in the table, but with games in hand they are still well capable of gaining promotion as League Champions. This week they travel to Plymouth to face bottom of the table Barabarians.