Counties 3 Tribute Devon North & East

North Tawton RFC 35 Tiverton 7

WITH only one game in the last month, not playing at home for five weeks and with the visit of top-of-the-table Tiverton, the North Tawton RFC faithful went into this match with a touch of concern, reports Christopher Phare.

The Tawts had put up a good showing when the sides met in Tivey, the hope was that they could get a good start and send the men from Tiverton home empty handed.

Right from the off, North Tawton went at the visitors as hard as possible, competing for every ball, be it a ruck, maul or a scrum, they were making a point and within, minutes got an early reward with a try from Glen Walters, which Jack Phare converted.

One then wondered if this might wake up the side from Tiverton and stir them into more joined up rugby but North Tawton were having none of it, two penalties from the boot of Jack Phare taking the score to 13-0.

A good attack from Tiverton allowed them to show a glimpse of what they can do given room to move the ball around led to their only score off the game, a converted try, making it 13-7.

North Tawton seemed to take this as a don’t go to sleep mode and stepped up another gear, playing some of the best rugby of the season so far. A second try followed, this time by James Miller, with a good kick added and taking his side into the break at 20-7.

Lots of words of wisdom from the Tiverton coaching staff could be heard from the touch line, complaints of a long injury list which all sides suffer with unfortunately, but that aside, they were seemingly quite shocked as to how well the home team were coming at them.

The second half started in the same vain with North Tawton at full tilt, going for the try bonus point and Tiverton trying to get out their own half. The third try arrived courtesy of Jeol Ireland, a missed kick taking it to 25 -7.

Not long after, maybe just trying too hard to get an attack of their own going, Tiverton gave away another penalty away and Jack Phare duly obliged, notching the kick and taking Tiverton to three tries away.

With the clock ticking down, it was flat out from the home team to get that fourth try and with almost the last kick of the game, Bill Sharp got on the end of the final play and went over for the valuable bonus point try- kick added by Jack Phare to give a final score of 35-7.

While it can be said that Tiverton have injury problems, the old saying you can only play what's in front of you is so true- if the Tawts can play like this every week then they can win far more than they lose. They seem to have got their mojo back so who knows what is next!

Still to come in 2024 is a trip to Exeter Engineers on Saturday 21 before North Tawton kickstart 2025 with a home game against New Cross in the Counties 3 Tribute Devon North & East division.