Saturday, January 26

Tribute Cornwall and Devon League

Honiton 30

BUDE were dumped off the summit of the Tribute Cornwall and Devon League table after a 30-0 defeat at new leaders Honiton.

The North Cornwall side travelled to the Alhallows Playing Field, looking for a repeat of their 38-24 victory at Bencoolen Meadow in October, but were outplayed from start to finish in atrocious conditions.

Bude made four changes from their 74-7 win over Hayle, with two in the forwards and two in the backs.

Key man Joe Wilson was back after having to work for the last fortnight to replace the unavailable Adam Black at number eight while second-row Joel Troke returned in place of tighthead-prop Chris Allin, which meant that Matt Williams shifted forward into the front-row.

In the backs, Charlie Watton returned from injury to replace the holidaying Olly Mounce while winger Tim Green made his first of the season instead of Jack Horwell, who was on the bench.

All three of Honiton’s defeats came in October and they’re unbeaten at home all season, and they took the lead inside five minutes as inside-centre Ollie Cave knocked over a penalty.

Bude’s forward dominance is well known, but it was they who were on the back-foot on 12 minutes. The hosts chose to kick to the corner from a penalty and set up a driving maul. With the home side pushing hard, Bude were adjudged to have illegally brought it to a halt and a penalty try was awarded.

Despite struggling for possession, Bude were left bemoaning their inability to keep the ball once more.

Player/coach Angus Hodges made a break through the midfield and offloaded to Wilson who was tackled ten metres out. However as they looked to recycle the ball quickly for a try, they gave away a penalty.

On 18 minutes, Honiton made them pay with a second try. From a scrum, the ball was worked out through the backs for winger Jake Smith to score in the corner and leave Bude with a mountain to climb.

With conditions worsening, the next 15 minutes were fairly attritional with no opportunities created by either side.

However, Cave was given the chance to slot over an easy penalty, which he obliged to extend their lead to 18-0.

Bude knew that chances had to be taken and they let slip a big one right before the break.

After kicking a penalty deep into the Honiton 22, miscommunication meant the ball went right over the top of the lineout and Honiton were able to clear.

At 18-0 down against a side who were unbeaten on their own patch all year, Bude needed a miracle to maintain top spot.

However they failed to really cause the home side any problems in the second-half and Honiton added two further scores.

On 55 minutes, full-back James Coutts-Tucker finished off a similar move to their second try before replacement Kyle Blackmore sealed their try bonus point with ten minutes left following a series of pick and gos.

With the pitch now resembling a mud bath, Bude failed to grab a foothold in the game as the home side overtook them at the top of the table and opened up a four-point lead with eight games to play.

He said: “They outplayed us hands down and they were deserving winners but I felt like we let them off the boil a little bit. It was a difficult afternoon but there wasn’t a lot more we could have done on the day. It comes down to being slightly better prepared and we weren’t quite up to the challenge really!

“They’re good at bullying teams but when they came to ours we bullied them back. But on Saturday they came out of the blocks and gave it everything, but this time we didn’t match up and it definitely showed. We let them get under our skin a bit.

“The big turning point was the lineout before half-time, but we messed it up. We had two big opportunities and if we were going to get close to them we needed to capitalise on them and put points on the board, which would have given us some momentum, but we didn’t do it.

“We didn’t execute well enough. Messing up a lineout in a game like that just isn’t good enough. The biggest difference was they took their chances and we didn’t.”

Bude get to enjoy a week off before they face bottom side Withycombe next Saturday, and Hodges hope they can use the break to their advantage.

He said: “We don’t do well with weeks off anyway, but if anything it’ll be a case of starting afresh after our wake-up call. We’ll just have the one session this week, which hopefully will be a good one, and we can use that as a springboard heading into next couple of games.”

Bude —

Denford (captain), R Hodges, Sharp, Hilliam-Cooke, Green, S Yates, Watton; Jeffery, Bolt, Williams, Kingdon, Troke, A Hodges, F Fry, Wilson

Replacements: Mead, Dunkin, Horwell

Bude’s man-of-the-match: Finley Fry