Saturday, January 4

Tribute Cornwall and Devon League

Bude 17

Lanner 7

TRIES from Tim Green and Will Kingdon meant Bude started 2020 with a workmanlike win over Lanner at Bencoolen Meadow on Saturday.

The North Cornwall side have had an up and down campaign so far, but maintained their record of losing just once on home soil thanks to a try in each half.

Player/coach Angus Hodges was missing a number of players from his starting 15 including Jake Keat, Warren Rumble, Rory Hodges, Olly Mounce and the departed Callum Bettington, which meant a first appearance of the season for Warren Rumble at flanker, while there were starts for Steve Yates, Green and Jack Horwell in the backs.

Lanner had conceded twice in the last four games to but still have six victories to their name to sit in mid-table, including a 26-19 success over Bude back in September.

Lanner like to use their strong pack as much as possible and make the game a tough affair. They were given the chance to notch the first points of the afternoon but Adam Harris’ penalty was awry.

Bude then grabbed the first points of the afternoon inside the quarter-hour mark as skipper Olly Denford slotted a penalty from in front of the posts.

However Lanner hit back almost straight away as a box-kick from scrum-half Steve Yates on his own 22 was charged down, which allowed Liam Carlyon to kick the ball ten metres and dot down.

Harris was successful with the kick.

The rest of the half was a stop-start affair with it being obvious that both sides hadn’t played for a few weeks.

But Bude went into the break with a 10-7 lead as Green joined in a driving maul to crash over. Denford converted.

The second-half was dominated by Bude, although they failed to make their dominance count by grabbing a bonus point.

Shortly after the hour another driving maul was finished off by Will Kingdon. The hosts went close on a couple occasions but were either held up or found the resolute Lanner defence too difficult to break down.

The final 15 minutes saw the game meander out with the hosts dominating ball and Lanner unable to threaten the hosts to ensure they headed back to West Cornwall without a losing bonus point.

Bude remain seventh, 13 points off second-placed Paignton, ahead of their trip to Liskeard-Looe on Saturday.

Hodges admitted it was a classic post-Christmas contest.

He said: “We knew what Lanner are like, they pack a hard punch in the forwards, where they make teams work and bully them into submission, which they did quite well against us down there.

“So we knew what we had to do to beat them and thankfully we did. In the second-half we probably had 80/90% of possession and spent over half an hour in their 22.

“The pack is pretty much where we want it to be, but that’s not to say that the backs did well. We had a slightly different line-up in the backs but they did really well. They defended solidly and dealt with their backs.”

Warren Rumble made his first appearance of the season and put in a man-of-the-match performance at flanker.

Hodges said: “Warren started because Jake Keat dropped out which meant he played at six, Joel Troke moved to five and Matt Williams moved into Jake’s position in the front-row. Warren made lots of carries, tackled well and got through lots of work around the park which was important with neither of the Frys around.”

Bude have won just once on the road this term, a 20-9 success at South Molton. But they will travel to Lux Park to take on a Liskeard-Looe side who have won just four of their 14 outings this term.

Hodges said: “Liskeard-Looe will be interesting as there’s not a lot between most of the teams this year. But we’ll be focusing on ourselves as we should have back-to-back games which we haven’t had for a while. With Warren and Joel now hopefully back in action regularly and Callum (Bettington) having moved away, it’ll give us chance to develop the squad.

“We need to get back in the zone for regular rugby each week for the rest of the season.”

Bude —

Denford, Horwell, Green, Hilliam-Cooke, Butler, Watton, S Yates; Williams, Bolt, Allin, Kingdon, Troke, Rumble, A Hodges, Wilson.

Replacements: Sobey, F Fry, Thomas.

Tries: Green, Kingdon.

Convs: Denford 2.

Pens: Denford.

Bude’s man-of-the-match: Warren Rumble.