Resilient Ford finally lose the mud bath.

Saturday 30th January 2016.
Camelford 10 Liskeard-Looe 20.

This cup double header saw Liskeard-Looe travel north to Camelford. The result of this game was inevitably going to be determined by which side could master the conditions for 80 minutes. Following the horrendous weather of the past 3 months the Lane End pitch looked in reasonable knick until a deluge just before the game caused standing surface water.
From the kick off Camelford showed their intent to keep the ball in hand and run at the visitors. Within a minute they were 7 points up as some smooth handling and excellent support play gave Dan Pike the opportunity to gallop over, unopposed, between the sticks. Tom Sandercock duly converted. This was one hell of a "wake up" call for the division one side. Liskeard pushed deep into enemy territory and managed to put together some decent rucks and eventually exposed the blind side to score a try on 10 minutes. This went unconverted. Camelford once again showed that they are not a side who will give up and for the rest of the half this really was their game. They continued to attack from all areas and seldom kicked. Liskeard-Looe had to be on the mettle in defence and try to use the sparse possession they gained.
The tenacity of the Ford finally got them a penalty opportunity 40 metres out. With difficult surface conditions this kick looked a long way out for Rich Jasper, but he was successful and Camelford ended the half 10 to 5 in the lead.
From the restart Camelford had to find another level of resolve as Liskeard-Looe showed determination to get back on terms. It was Camelford who made the initial incursions and looked like scoring during the first 10 minutes of the half. Liskeard-Looe had to be resilient a realised that they needed to pin Camelford back into their half with some big kicks. With the muddy patches behind them Camelford began to find it hard to run out of their own half and too many rucks and mauls were beginning to have an effect on their tiring forward pack. Still Liskeard -Looe were struggling to get on the score board.
With an hour of this contest complete it looked like Camelford might hang on and take the scalp of the division 1 side. It was not to be as the visitors pinned Camelford in the mud of their own 22 area. The visitors took control of a maul some 30 metres out and drove hard eventually flopping over for the score. At 10 all the home side were delighted to see the conversion hit an upright. Camelford set about getting a foothold in the visitors half, but this was proving to be a hard ask and a penalty was awarded to Liskeard as Camelford killed the ball at a ruck - resulting in a Yellow card for Simon Gregory on his debut. The kick was clean and Liskeard -Looe gained the lead by 3 points.
Now with 14 players, and a number of substitutions made, Camelford would have to keep up the fight.
Liskeard -Looe cleverly pinned the home side back into their mud ridden 22 and gained a scrum 15 metres out. This was to be the undoing of Camelford's very fine effort as the visitors had realised that they had the ascendancy in this phase with only 10 minutes to play. To the Ford's credit they held off 5 attempts at their line from these scrums. A penalty was awarded to the visitors who wisely took the scrum. 3 or 4 more attempts were repelled but eventually the Liskeard-Looe scrum half was able to pop the ball up for a rampaging player to score to make the result 20 to 10. The conversion was missed. Having used all their substitutes Camelford finished the game with 14 players as Captain Carl Rockell had to leave the game with an eye injury.
Liskeard-Looe made their journey home knowing that they had been pushed very hard by a resilient and determined Camelford.