Saturday, February 16

Tribute Cornwall and Devon League

Bude 36

Liskeard-Looe 13

THE destination of the Tribute Cornwall and Devon League title is in Bude’s own hands after a 36-13 victory over Liskeard-Looe at Bencoolen Meadow on Saturday.

Angus Hodges’ men had gone 21 days without a game following a scheduled rest weekend and Withycombe’s decision to concede last Saturday, but it didn’t show as three tries in each half meant that they moved up to second following Penryn’s 28-20 win at previous leaders Honiton, who drop to third.

Intriguingly, Bude’s next match is at Penryn next Saturday, with the victors knowing that if they win their remaining games, they will earn promotion to Western Counties (West).

Hodges made three changes from the side that lost 30-0 at Honiton in their last outing. In the pack, Chris Allin replaced Simon Jeffery at prop with Matt Williams switching over to loosehead-prop, while in the backs there was a real change as centres Ed Hilliam-Cooke and Kieran Sharp who are both unavailable for the rest of the season due to injury and travelling respectively, were replaced by the fit again duo of Charlie Watton and Will Pharo.

However Pharo slotted in at full-back instead of skipper Olly Denford who took Sharp’s usual position at 13.

When the two sides met at Lux Park back in October, Bude ground out a 24-13 win and the hosts were expecting a tough encounter after Liskeard were just edged out 12-10 by Honiton last weekend.

Despite Bude’s recent inactivity, they started the brighter and took the lead on nine minutes with a brilliantly worked try. From a lineout on the right-hand side on the 22, Bude made a couple of runs through the forwards before the ball was spread across the field for left-winger Tim Green to receive the ball 15 metres out and beat a couple of defenders to score. Denford slotted the extras.

The next 11 minutes saw both sides battle away without much happening but Liskeard got themselves on the scoreboard when fly-half Tom Dinnis knocked over a 30-metre penalty after Bude were caught offside.

However the coastal club soon extended their advantage on 24 minutes. After more hard carries from the forwards, Williams took the ball five metres out on the run and barged his way over. Denford did the rest for a 14-3 lead.

Liskeard knew they needed the next score and spent the majority of next quarter of the opening 40 minutes in the Bude half.

However their failure to capitalise, besides a second Dinnis penalty, was laid bare before the break as a brilliant 20-metre grubber kick by fly-half Steve Yates was seized upon by the onrushing Denford to gather and run in from 15 metres. He then made it three from three on the kicking tee to give Bude a 21-6 cushion at half-time.

One more try would have secured Bude a bonus point and they only had to wait nine minutes into the second-half to get it as Hodges slid under a couple of tackles from less than a metre. Denford missed the conversion from the left-hand side.

Up to the hour saw both teams battle away without reward before Green added another wonderful team try to make it 31-6.

A good break started by Green on halfway saw him, Denford and Jason Bolt each run ten or more metres before Bolt eventually gave the ball back to Green on the left-wing to cross with ease.

Although Bude were unlikely to self-explode with less than a quarter of the game to go, the visitors were given encouragement as Hodges was sent to the sin-bin on 62 minutes by the referee for not rolling away in the ruck before the Lions were awarded a penalty try shortly after as the hosts were adjudged to have killed the ball at a ruck on their own line.

At 31-13, any chance Liskeard had was extinguished with 11 minutes to go as more pick and gos from the forwards saw second-row Will Kingdon bullzdoze his over from close range.

Bude pushed hard for a seventh try but it didn’t come as they moved to within four points of leaders Penryn ahead of their potential decider next weekend.

Player/coach, Angus Hodges, was delighted with his side.

He said: “It was a good day in the end. We were definitely a bit nervous having had three weeks off and we don’t normally do well after breaks.

But we had a good training session on Thursday so the boys were clearly up for it. During the warm-up you could tell that we hadn’t played for a few weeks but I didn’t think that was a bad thing at all. We knew we’d have to play well after their result against Honiton and the boys were fired up and understood that it wasn’t going to be easy. But for whole 80 minutes we really turned up and played pretty much how we wanted to, so I was quite happy really, especially compared to how it could have gone.

“I was really pleased with some of our tries and I think that we could have scored more if we made fewer mistakes.

“But after three weeks off it’s kind of to be expected, but hopefully we can finish the season on a high, cut out the mistakes and take steps forward as a team.”

Hodges was full of praise for Green and Williams.

He said: “Timmy played really well, he got two tries and was really threatening but Matt Williams was man-of-the-match. He was really aggressive in attack and defence and brought loads of intensity.

“But that said, there were loads of good performances in a really good team performance.”

They’ll need to repeat, and possibly trump Saturday’s performance, but Hodges knows that the clash at the Memorial Ground has all the makings of a classic.

He said: “I definitely see Penryn as a slightly more consistent team than Honiton which for us is a good thing. They’re good at controlling the game and their defence is strong so we’ve got to bring a lot of intensity and limit our mistakes as that could cost us. We need to build phases and keep the ball in-hand a lot to break them down.”

Hodges isn’t sure whether another rest weekend is a good thing or not as they look to cut the four point gap between them.

He said: “It gives us time to build up to it but that’s only if the boys get ready. If we’re slack and don’t really train on Tuesday and Thursday this week we maybe struggling. But hopefully the boys are fired up for it from early on and are just prepared to work hard for the next two weeks to be ready for the game!

“But if we play like we did at home against them (Bude won 27-19), I have full confidence that we can get a good result.”

Bude —

Pharo, R Hodges, Denford (captain), Watton, Green, S Yates, Mounce; Williams, Bolt, Allin, Kingdon, Troke, A Hodges, F Fry, Wilson

Replacements: Jeffery, Dunkin, Horwell

Tries: Green 2, Williams, Denford, A Hodges, Kingdon

Convs: Denford 3

Pens: N/A

Bude’s man-of-the-match: Matt Williams