Salcombe First XV beat New Cross (26-20)

24th Sep 2011

It was as well for Salcombe that Chris Drew had his kicking boots on and that Ryan Wotton ,the New Cross kicker didn't. If Wotton had kicked any of the 3 easy penalties he missed plus converted all 3 of the visitors tries New Cross would have won. Yet that would have been an injustice as for long periods of the game Salcombe were well in control and indeed at one point were 23-5 up. However they seem to have an unhappy knack of going off the boil spectacularly and conceding easy tries. Moreover the forwards in particular need to play with their customary urgency right from the start of the game rather than ease themselves gradually into top gear. At several early rucks up to 5 Crabs forwards could be seen ambling gently to join their outnumbered colleagues and looking mildly put out that the ball was emerging on the opposition's side by the time they got there.

This lack of urgency also manifested itself at the first scrum where Salcombe were shunted back yards by an admittedly strong visiting pack. This gave New Cross field position for a missed penalty in front of the posts, an error they soon rectified by charging straight through the Salcombe defence to score a try close to the sticks where once again the conversion failed.

Salcombe now woke up dominating play and scoring an unanswered 23 points. The tackling was hard and Stuart Winzer, Sam Viles and Jim Winzer all were conspicuous putting in some crunching hits. At the breakdown Kevin Wreyford won some good turnovers and Sean Baker and Scott Lowry showed some delicate handling for big men in the 2nd row when they made the hard yards. All this pressure resulted in Drew putting over a penalty and then Simon Keen at full back collected a New Cross kick well outside the visitor's 22 and decided that with nothing much on to drop a fantastic goal worthy of Johnny himself to bring the score back to 6-5 to Salcombe. Just before half time an error in the New Cross defence allowed the ball to come to Anthony Squire who raced in for a try under the posts which Drew converted, 13-5 to Salcombe.

Straight after the break a similar lapse by the visitors allowed Rupert Bevan to run in a try which Drew converted. Further Salcombe pressure saw Drew slot yet another penalty to bring up a scoreline of 23-5 at which point the Crabs went off the boil conceding penalties and allowing New Cross to put together a great forward drive resulting in a converted try. Further mistakes gifted New Cross another try, unconverted, and a penalty to bring the score to 23-20. Drew then slotted another penalty when Squire was tackled round the neck as he was going to score. The crowd thought a penalty try was in order but the ref thought otherwise and in the end Salcombe then saw out a tense last few minutes for the win. This now puts Salcombe in the final of the Devon section of the National Cup against Topsham on 15 October, venue yet to be announced.

Next week its league with the 1s away at St. Columba, ko 3.0pm and the 2s at home to Plymouth Barbarians also 3.0pm.

But now for the serious bit. John Sprague, Salcombe's Chairman says that this season will be tough for Salcombe and we need to be at full strength as far as possible. There appears to be an outbreak of weddings in the area and a number of players have indicated that their other halves expect them to attend no matter how reluctantly. The Club expects players to play and unless it is the wedding of a close member of the family or you are the best man then you are expected on the pitch. In any case as all the affected players have said to me they would still be able to attend the Reception which is the good bit and all they would miss is the ceremony and then some amateur David Bailey dragging out the photos interminably. I hope this helps Chaps.

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Salcombe First XV beat New Cross (26-20)