GALLERY: Tavistock’s Hillson scores two tries as Devon reach Twickenham with win over Hertfordshire

TAVISTOCK’S George Hillson scored two tries as Devon booked their place at Twickenham by beating Hertfordshire 43-10 in their County Championship Division Three semi-final at Brixham.

The Green and Whites will now play North Midlands in the final at the home of English rugby on Sunday, June 16.

Devon totally dominated Saturday’s match at Astley Park and were 22-0 up after just 12 minutes.

They ran in six tries in total, with Brixham’s Matt Crosscombe, like Hillson, bagging two and his club colleagues Mitch Pinkus and Jamie Hext also crossing the whitewash and Joel Ashworth kicking the rest of the points.

The Devon team included Devonport Services players Rikki Bentham, Aiden Taylor, Andy Pond, James Hocking, Richard West, Liam Jarvis and Matt Gregory, Plymstock Oaks’ Corey Jamieson and Ollie White, Ivybridge’s Henry Trudgill and Tavistock’s Hillson.

Ashworth put Devon ahead after just two minutes with a penalty before former Ivybridge fly-half Pinkus ran in from 25-metres to score the game’s opening try.

Ex-Albion winger Crosscombe then scored two fine efforts within three minutes to totally put Devon on course for Twickenham.

Hertfordshire did miss a penalty and Devon had Andy Pond yellow carded but the home side still finished the half strongly with scrum-half Hillson scoring a great try down the right to make it 29-0 at half-time.

Hillson opened the scoring in the second period with a burst down the left wing after Devon had taken a quick line-out.

But then the home county lost their way a bit as they made a host of changes.

Hertfordshire pulled a try back courtesy of winger Charlie Goss-Lambourne before Ashworth and Crosscombe were yellow carded within the space of three minutes.

Josh Rudling added a second try for Hertfordshire, but Devon ended on a high with replacement Hext running in to score under the posts.

Meanwhile, Cornwall ended their Division One campaign with a 48-24 win over Hampshire at Redruth.

However, they missed out on reaching Twickenham after their agonising 34-33 defeat at Kent the previous weekend when they wasted a great chance to win the game at the death.

Cornwall, who were handed two away games to start off their group, were left frustrated that their only home match was left meaningless after Surrey handed Kent a walkover on Friday.

The Duchy, who were able to welcome back Matt Shepherd who had missed the Kent match, narrowly led 20-17 at half-time thanks to tries by Duncan Tout and two from Dan Tyrell.

But Cornwall took command after the interval and scored four more tries courtesy of Jordan Nicholls (2), Hugo Culverhouse and CJ Boyce, with Fraser Honey kicking the rest of the points.

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