PLYMSTOCK Albion Oaks, Old Techs and Tavistock continued their pre-season preparations with matches on Tuesday evening.
Old Techs and Oaks drew 12-12 in a competitive encounter at Weston Mill, while Tavistock went down 35-12 away to higher league Okehampton.
Cornwall/Devon League side Oaks, who had played Brixham on Saturday, started quickly against Devon One outfit Old Techs and were 12-0 after 21 minutes with Tom Tabb and Jack Green scoring for the visitors.
But gradually Techs, playing their first pre-season game, started to find their feet. Their defence stood out as did their set-piece work.
They frustrated Oaks’ mix-and-match side and just before half-time were gifted a try when a wayward pass by Plymstock in their own half was picked up by Dan Pullen, who ran in from 35 metres to score.
The Devon One side continued to defend well in the second period. Although they did not have a lot of territory they made it pay 10 minutes before full-time when James Douglas scored from a well-worked catch-and-drive move.
Techs had a player sin-binned in the closing stages but Oaks could not find a way through. And in the last few seconds, Techs captain Billy Evans tried an ambitious drop-goal to try to win the match but it went well wide.
Techs coach Shaun Bedford-Smith said afterwards: “We scrummed really well. I was really happy with that and I could not fault our defence.
“We were under pressure at times, particularly in the first 20 minutes – we made a really slow start – but defensively we were quality. Overall we were happy.”
Meanwhile, Tavistock scrum-half George Hillson continued his hot-try scoring form in pre-season by bagging both his side’s effort against Okehampton.
Hillson had also collected two against Tamar Saracens three days earlier.
Cornwall/Devon League side were only 14-12 down with 20 minutes to go but Okehampton’s higher league experienced told in the end.
“The boys are happy on the whole,” said Tavistock player-coach Hammy Kerswill.
“We held their scrum in the second half and even drove them back resulting in George’s second try.
“We had 27 players run out with a lot of new faces that weren’t there on Saturday (against Tamar Saracens).”
Among the new faces having a run out on Tuesday was former Cornwall under-20 player Jack Osborne, while Ash Miller, Aidan Mason and Josh O’Neil, who have returned to the club, also got game-time.
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