Tavistock were only 10-3 down at the half-time, but suffered a host of injuries in the game and had to play the start of the second half with 14 players before ending up with 13.

“At half-time we were very much in it,” said Hammy Kerswill. “We took the lead when Ed Nettleship put over a penalty. They levelled up shortly after and then got a try just before half-time to make it 10-3.

“But we lost Martin Budden in the first 15 minutes with a knee injury, then Ryan Bragg, who was on the wing, dislocated his shoulder so we had used two subs in the first 20 minutes.

“Then on the stroke of half-time Joe Hair’s hamstring went and then in the second half Jack Easton took a knock to the head and had to come off so we had to go down to 14. Then I did a rib. We played the second half with 14 and then the last 20 with 13.

“I think 22-3 or 22-10 would have been a fair result.

“Actually on our line we defended well for really long periods with 13 men and we were really impressive. We showed a lot of fight. Sam Northmore, Josh Langton and Jasper Cameron were really impressive in defence, but with 13 men they drew us in and got a couple of easy tries out wide.”

He added: “I’m not too worried about the actually scoreline. There was a lot of fight shown, but the concern is how many fit bodies are we going to have for next week.”