The young Teign’s had a lot of enforced changes due to unavailability this week and were playing with some players out of their normal position. It was said to them before kick off to go out and play hard for each other and fundamentally enjoy the game.

Brixham fancied their chances of causing an upset and it was down to us to prove otherwise. The conditions were also not in the Teign’s favour and made their open running rugby game difficult to implement. In deed the pitch was more of a waterlogged ploughed field but with so many games cancelled this season it was great to just be out there playing.

The first half was more of an arm wrestle with both sides trying to gain the upper hand. The Teign’s were getting on top but too many simple handling mistakes and wrong options were being made, constantly handing the possession back to the opposition.

H/T 0-0

The Teign’s knew that the second half would be a big challenge, playing up the hill and a few positional changes were made. For the first 10 minutes of the second half Brixham really had the Teign’s under immense pressure on their own line and to a man they fronted up and would not let them over their line. There were some outstanding tackles put in and a massive hit from Jason Carcamo turned the ball over and the Teign’s were able to work a few phases up the field and get the ball to fly half Oli Nicks who put in a massive clearing kick up to the half way line, relieving all the pressure.

This was to prove the turning point in the match. Brixham then won the resulting line out and kicked straight to full back James Rowe who looked up and ran 60 meters to score a brilliant counter attacking try. This gave the young Teign’s a massive boost and re-energised them as they started to dominate possession once again.

Some great phase play bought about a penalty on the Brixham 22 meter line and with a quick tap and go Oli Nicks worked a two on one over the opposite side of the pitch to put in James Rowe for his second. Straight from the kick off Charlie Doolan, who had to move from centre to openside flanker for the day, caught the ball and ran a perfect line though the Brixham defence to score a great individual try which was converted by scrum half Finn Addiscott to end the game as a contest. Brixham got their well deserved consolation try on the final whistle.

Today the team really worked hard for each other and never let the Brixham team dominate possession, with some great defensive pressing and some outstanding tackling. And once the Teign’s had the ball they used it well and there were some fantastic kicks out of hand by Oli Nicks. The handling between backs and forwards was excellent considering the conditions and even towards the end of the match they were still trying to work the phases.

A couple of special mentions go to Charlie Doolan and Teddy Harbert who I thought were outstanding as our new flankers for the day and to our whole front five forwards, Oscar Kennady, Tom Bennett, Jason Carcamo, Thomas Walters and Jack Par who all had to scrummage for the whole game on a very heavy pitch and held out against some big Brixham forwards.

Try Scorers: 2x James Rowe 1x Charlie
Conversions: 1x Finn Addiscott

Well done to you all
Marcus Webb
Coach

Match details

Match date

Sun 08 Apr 2018

Kickoff

11:00

Team overview