Jeremy is still on holiday this week and so I stay at the helm for another week. I’ve been drinking Grappa with my Italian friend Cristian tonight, so this might not make a lot of sense.

Furthermore, this Italian computer has spell check on Italian; hence everything other than Ciao has a red line under it.

As they say over here “Molto Bene”.

Honiton maintained thier 100% league record on Saturday with a professional away performance agaist Paignton. The 18-13 scoreline in favour of the Lacemen ultimately came down to the superior kicking of the in form of Webber. His greater accuracy and penalty at the end of the third quarter gave the Lacemen the cushion they needed to see the game out.

As it was, it was incredibly humid at the seaside with little air to be had. Paignton, who have dropped down two leagues in as many seasons hard a bark worse than thier bite, and it wasn’t long before the Lacemen got thier teeth into the scrummage. Honiton looked to have the upper hand, but Paignton looked reasonable with ball in hand in the opening exchanges. This yielden a penalty and from which they had an unsucessful attempt at goal.

Honiton’s clearance twenty two went dead to touch and heaped more pressure on the visitors. An alledged high tackle saw another failed kick at goal before Honiton kicked in. A penalty saw them kick into to the twenty two, from where they caught and drove the lineout all the way to the line in a controlled fashion. Goulden came up with the ball at the end. A real pack effort that lifted the travelling support. Webber missed the conversion, but his time was to come.

Hang on they want to borrow the computer. Its quarter past twelve for Chirsts sake. 2 minutes.

Well now it’s twenty to one. Thanks for that random Italians that speak absolutely no english at all but got me a beer.

From the re-start Honiton gave away a needless penalty which saw them give away a cheap 3 for an accidental block. Paignton followed this up by finding space on the right for their robust second row to do damage.

He generated quick ball which saw the Lacemen at sea. They crossed to the left of the posts for an easy convesion.

As the game neared half time, Honiton were behind due to thier own errors more than anything else. Pressure from on five man Paignton lineout saw the nine throw a loose pass to the on coming forward. The robust lock mentioned earlier couldn’t hold and Small pounced on his chance. The open side, noted as man of the match reacted before the opposition defence to kick on the loose ball with his cultured right foot. By kicking through with his laces (in text book fashion), Small gave the ball enough elevation for it to bounce appropriately into his hands giving him an unapposed race to the line. Small dedicated his try to the electical insulation tape that had held his Nikes together.

Webber added the extras and Honiton went ahead into half time having not really expended a lot of energy.

Honiton knew at half time that this would have been a wasted oppourtunity if they left with nothing and started the half with another Ben Webber penalty, taking the score to 15-10 in favour of the Lacemen.

Honiton continued to press and missed a chance to kill the game off when a loose kick found Webber on the right. He noted the space on the left skirted around two defenders before feeding Keep. Keep, who had aquitted himself well throughout, could not collect the loose pass and the chance went begging.

As it was Webber redeemed himself with a penalty kick shortly afterwards to take the score to 18-10 and crucially 2 scores.
Paignton huffed and puffed and whilst Honiton did make hard work of it at times, they saw it out in very professional fashion. Paignton knocked over one penalty, but that was all they could muster as Honiton stood strong.

Next week Honiton face Penzance Amatures who also have a 100% record in a 2nd vs 3rd clash.