The game started well for Withy who took advantage of an early penalty to keep possession and put on some early pressure. With the ball coming out to the left wing, Winger Liam Daniels turned on the pace to sprint along the touchline to score in the corner after just three minutes.
Even early on, the visitors were starting to show their strength in the set play. This was made evident as Argaum opted for a scrum from a free kick on their 5m line. The Withy pack marched on to push the home side straight off the ball! With the rolling scrum now over the try line, Joe Blyth dotted down to double the Withies’ lead to 0-10 after ten minutes.
Getting settled into the game and growing in strength with the ball, Withycombe began to dominate large areas of play, forcing the errors and penalties out of the home side. As the game reached the half hour mark, the boys in green and back were back in the driving seat from the 5m scrum; Joe Blyth dutifully dotted down once again as the scrum trundled past the whitewash. With the first half drawing to an end, Plymouth Argaum had their first full meaningful period of attack inside the Withy half. Withy dealt with the pressure well and before long stole a key line out to clear back into the Argaum half. The first half ended with the score 0-15.

The second half saw Withycombe playing down the slope, but against the building wind. Clearly a team that play better up the slope, Argaum started the stronger side and spent a little more time with the ball. Withy had to start defending hard; but ten minutes into the half, lost Jack Fear to a tackle deemed a little too high on the Argaum player. Losing the player spurred Withy back on and they levelled out the play to keep the ball in the middle third. However, no sooner had Withy gone back to a full compliment of players, they found themselves back down to fourteen players once again after losing Dave Brown to the sin bin following a team warning for persistent offences.
Keen on getting themselves onto the scoreboard, Argaum picked up the pace, making effective use of the jackal move to pick up the penalties and head upfield. Withy defence stood strong when it was needed most and denied two tries from the home side, holding both advances up off the line, eventually clearing their lines through a penalty.
With the ball back in Withycombe hands, play headed down to the Argaum 22’ where, following two or three penalties denying tries from Withy, the referee headed under the posts to award Withycombe the penalty try and the 4-try bonus point.
With the score now at 0-22 and just five minutes left on the clock, the game looked to be in the bag, which may have led to a little complacency with Withy being caught sleeping as Argaum’s James Green collected a high ball from inside his own half and set off for the try line, averting the tackles and scoring directly behind the posts for a consolatory try.
Withy responded well, however and still found time to get one final score of their own with Liam Daniels completing a great team effort to crash over in the far corner of the field. Tom Cooke’s conversion brought an end to proceedings with the final score being Plymouth Argaum 7, Withycombe 29.

Next weekend, Withycombe will look to keep this momentum going when they welcome Barnstaple’s 2nd XV to Raleigh Park. Kick off will be at 2:30pm.