Bude made it three consecutive league wins away from home as an outstanding second-half performance put them on the way to a resounding 52-26 victory at Hayle.

With the game deadlocked at 19-19 at the break and with the visitors down to 14-men after Olly Mounce was sent-off for kicking, Bude ran five second-half tries to cement fifth position in the table.

Both sides traded early unconverted tries with Simon Jeffery crashing over for the visitors from 10-metres.

Hayle then scored twice in quick succession through Tony Matthews and Rob Goodman with Bude’s player/coach, Angus Hodges, sin-binned for inadvertently taking out one of two Hayle players who were looking to get on the end of a kick in behind.

To Bude’s credit they continued to fight back and levelled through tries from Mounce and Joe Wilson, the second of which came after Wilson ran off the back of a maul.

However, Bude were dealt what appeared to be a serious blow before the break as Mounce was sent-off for kicking in retaliation to some foul play by a Hayle forward.

Bude knew that they needed to keep ball in-hand during the second-half and they did just that as they played their best 40 minutes of the season.

Playing without a scrum-half and switching Hodges from flanker to outside-centre seemed to do the trick.

Firstly, second-row Will Kingdon barged his way over from a maul before youngster Zerran Hammond showed excellent speed and footwork to beat the home winger and full-back for pace to score.

It was soon 40-19 when Hodges received a pass from fly-half Charlie Watton to step inside the full-back and ease to the line. Again Olly Denford converted.

Bude were playing with plenty of swagger and Hammond scored his second of the day. Receiving the ball on the left-wing, he hardly had any space to work with.

However, he wriggled inside and then ran right through a couple of home players to race clear.

The gloss was put on the result by veteran Jason Bolt as he crashed over from a couple of metres after a quick break, which involved Wilson and Kingdom.

Hayle did score a try through Goodman’s second of the afternoon but Bude had saved their best half of the season to date.

Talking about the game, player/coach, Angus Hodges, said:?“We were worried at half-time. We went into the game looking for a convincing victory but it didn’t work out quite like that. They were the better team for much of the first-half and we were pleased to go in level considering what had happened.

“But for some reason, Olly being sent-off seemed to give us a spark. We knew that if we didn’t improve they were going to walk over us. We simplified things and decided to keep it in the forwards and then try and use our backs when could.

“We played without a scrum-half so whoever got to the ruck first it was their job to keep the ball moving and it worked really nicely. We sucked their forwards into the rucks and then we used the big, wide pitch to our advantage and scored some really good tries.

“Our defence was also a lot stronger and we kept the ball as well as we have all season. We went through a lot of phases and scored five tries so I couldn’t really ask for more to be honest in the end.”

Hodges also had some special praise for his flying young winger.

He said: “Zerran is absolutely rapid but he’s lacked a bit of confidence in the few games he’s played for us this season.

However on Saturday, he really came out of his shell and was brilliant so hopefully he can keep doing that for us.”

Bude —

Tries: Jeffery, Mounce, Wilson, Kingdom, Hammond 2, Hodges, Bolt

Convs: Denford 6

Pens: N/A