Salcombe v Dartmouth 10-03-18
The Devon Junior Cup Round 1
Salcombe RFC 10 – 19 Dartmouth RFC
Dartmouth were made to work very hard in their first round defence of the Devon Junior Cup
at Salcombe on Saturday afternoon. A spirited Salcombe side played well in the first half and
it was a very tight game until the 34th minute when a nice Dartmouth move involving Jake
Bridgwood and Sam Pearson setup Karl Caunter with the first try of the match. That was the
only score between the 2 sides going into the half time break with Dartmouth leading 0-5.
The second half started equally as close with Salcombe missing the chance to reduce the
score with a missed penalty on 56 minutes but did make up for it with 13 minutes left when
Salcombe managed to breach the Dartmouth defence and scored to level at 5-5. That made
for an interesting last 10 minutes with Karl Caunter linking up well with Tom Clark to score
his 7th try of the season on 73 minutes. Jack Clark kicked the conversion to make it 5-12.
With 2 minutes to play Dec Hammond was handed a yellow card as he took one for the team
but Salcombe hit back and scored again and had the chance to level the scores but the
conversion was narrowly wide with meant Dartmouth led 10-12. Straight after the restart
Dartmouth took control and with the last play of the match the Dartmouth backs spread the
ball wide for Ben Peters to run into the corner and back inside for Lorien Spurdle to score.
Dave Champion with the conversion made the final score 10-19.
Dartmouth now have a weekend off before travelling to Plymouth on the 24th March to take
on Tamar Saracens in their final league match of the season. Round 2 of the Devon Junior
Cup will then take place on the 31st March with Dartmouth travelling to either Ilfracombe or
Topsham.