Tavistock 5 v Liskeard-Looe 11

Last Saturday The Lions travelled the short distance to Tavistock with changes to the squad that played the previous week, as Nick Parker, Ben Kitto and Ieuan Evans were all unavailable, with Treve Murley promoted from the bench into the inside centre berth and bringing in, onto the wing, Mickael Delage and Jack Parker to the bench, both from the 2nd XV and gave Tom Dinnis his debut at fly-half. The main pitch had a lot of standing water on it so the match was played on the sloping Tavistock 2nd XV pitch.
Liskeard started well, playing downhill, and were awarded a penalty in the ninth minute, just outside the home twenty-two and this was slotted by young Tom Dinnis to open the scoring and on twelve minutes a second penalty was awarded to Liskeard, this time on the home ten metre line, and a confident Dinnis asked for the kicking tee and slotted the kick well to put The Lions 6-0 up. However Liskeard weren’t getting it all there way with Tavistock putting in attacks but a superb defensive effort by Liskeard kept them at bay and al the attacks by The Lions were also thwarted although the wet slippery ball was also playing a part in the fact there was to be no further scoring in the first half. With the change of ends it was thought, on the touchline, that Liskeard may not have scored enough points playing down the slope and the visitors were put under pressure but superb defending stopped Tavy from getting on the scoreboard. The Liskeard started to get the ascendency over the home eight driving the ball forward and putting in the hard yards and it wasn’t until the sixtieth minute that the scoreboard was in action this came about when number eight Adam Tyndale-Powell’s looping pass found wing James Rogers to slide in for an unconverted try in the corner. Liskeard again came under intense pressure and close to the final whistle Tavistock scored an unconverted pushover try for a well-deserved losing bonus point to make the final score 11-6. It was never going to be a flowing match because of the weather conditions and only great defence and the better control of the ball by the Liskeard pack that secured the win. Liskeard go into the two week Christmas break in a creditable eighth position in the league. Liskeard 2nd Xv were also in action in a weather affected match against their counterparts at Bodmin coming away with an 8-7 win with the points coming from a Jason Brown try and a match winning penalty by fly half Andy Sheer. The next games are on January 5th with the 1st XV home to Topsham with a 1430 kick off and the 2nds are scheduled to play away to Tamar Saracens