A MUCH-changed Devonport Services side overcame a slow start to beat lower league neighbours Ivybridge 40-12 at Cross-in-Hand on Saturday and progress through to the semi-finals of the Devon Senior Cup.
Regional Two South West outfit Ivybridge, who once again had a young side out, had stormed into a 12-0 lead after just eight minutes and looked like they might be able to cause a major shock.
But Devonport, who had made 10 personnel changes to their team that had played against St Austell in the league the previous week, eventually got going and ended up running in six tries – three in each half.
Services will now face a trip to Exmouth in the cup semi-final, while Ivybridge will drop into the shield competition, where they are set to face Topsham.
Afterwards, Devonport head coach Ben Russell said: “You saw they (Ivybridge) were up for it. They have a nice, young group of players coming through and they didn’t stop fighting.
“I have coached a lot of those young lads and they have got guts. They probably had five or six under-19s on the pitch, which is cracking for them going forward.”
He added: “When we cut out the errors and just played rugby, we scored some lovely tries.
“If we had started differently it might have been a different scoreline, but we are happy with the win, yet performance wise it was a bit of a step back from last week, however, we have another week to fix it.”
Services did show their strength in depth by making so many changes.
“I think we had 11 changes from last week, but apart from Freddie Dover, Warren Weerakoon and Charlie Over, the rest had all played ones before, so it was still pretty much a first team.
“We were lucky enough to be able to make some changes and rest some boys.
“I thought Charlie and Warren went really well. They carried hard and they are quick.
“And to nil them second half was good. That had been our aim for the whole game, but we failed that after about five minutes.”
Saturday’s game did come at a cost for Services with prop James McFarlane pulling his calf muscle early on.
Ivybridge head coach Steve Atkinson said: “It was a little bit gutting.
“We started off really well and they (Services) couldn’t really touch us for 10-12 minutes, but it was just our little errors again.
“We had a few chances, but their maul defence was really good, which has been one of our strongest assets this year.
“But a lot of it was just game management, especially when they went down to 13.”
He added: “We had five or six 18-year-olds out there – and there were three more debuts – but I’m just a bit gutted.
“They (Services) had some good strong boys, but it was a chance to show how well we have worked the last three weeks.
“And the first 10 minutes were brilliant. I was thinking this is excellent we are really taking it to them, but it was just little bit of game-management and errors.”
Ivybridge, who had won their opening two home games, could not have asked for a better start on Saturday.
They took the lead in the fifth minute when young winger Jack Guyver went over in the left corner after some intense pressure.
And it got better for them almost immediately when a wayward pass by Services in their own 22 allowed Adam Lilley to pounce on the ball and feed number eight Joe Owen to score under the posts. Harry Newman-Wild added the simple conversion to make it 12-0.
But then Services finally got going and prop Oli Symons scored two tries from close range, both converted by Richard West, to put them 14-12 up.
Then summer signing Over scored a fine try in the right corner after great play by fellow new winger Weerakoon, who did catch the eye at Cross-in-Hand with his pace and power.
West again converted to put Devonport 21-12 ahead going into half-time.
However, just before the break, Symons was yellow carded, and with McFarlane having already gone off with a calf injury, Services had no other prop cover and so had to go to uncontested scrums and go down to 13 men for 10 minutes.
But Ivybridge could not take advantage and just before the visitors went back up to 15 players, they scored a fourth try when West put in a great chip over the defence for Charlie Groves to score under the posts.
Ivybridge did have some good pressure, but Services defended really well before the experienced Matt Gregory produced the moment of the match with two dummies to score a great try next to the posts. West again converted to make it 35-12.
Fittingly, it was impressive Sri Lankan debutant Weerakoon who scored the final try, going over in the left corner after good passing across the line from a line-out on the left.
DEVON INTERMEDIATE CUP
PLYMSTOCK Oaks pulled off a shock in the Devon Intermediate Cup by beating higher league Teignmouth 47-27 away from home.
Oaks will now host Okehampton in the semi-finals after the west Devon side overcame Newton Abbot 56-33 away.
Plymstock stormed into a 28-0 lead at Bitton Park, before Teignmouth pulled it back to 28-22, but then Oaks enjoyed another purple patch to seal the win.
They ran in seven tries, six of which were converted by player-coach Lewis Paterson.
Fellow coach Mike Lewis said afterwards: “It was good.
“We came out of the blocks really quickly and went 28-0 up. We attacked from everywhere and tried to play the space, which is what we have been trying to do since pre-season and it worked really well.
“We found the gaps we wanted to, and we were rewarded with four tries and four conversions.
“It was a really good start, however, we didn’t get the rub of the green on a few decisions and they scored 22 unanswered points.
“For a neutral it was a fantastic game; it was end-to-end.
“We had such a young side out and it was fantastic to see them pulling together and grinding out a result after the last couple of weeks.
“We have got some really good young chaps in there, who are straight out of colts. They are young, quick, agile and strong and they deserve a lot of credit for what they are achieving at such a young age.”
Lewis added: “Last week (against Truro in the RFU Cup) we were a bit disappointed with the result, however, we learned a lot from the experience.
“The week before we were very much disappointed with the league result away to Barnstaple II, so we needed to do something to make sure we were on a positive end of something this time around, so we were really happy with the result.
“You can’t play full on for 80 minutes. There are always going to be peaks and troughs, but fortunately our peaks were just a bit bigger than their peaks and our troughs were a bit higher as well, so it was pretty good.”
Paterson got Oaks underway with a converted try in the 10th minute. That was quickly followed by further touchdowns by Ben Ross, Charlie Watson and Harry Toghill.
Teignmouth pulled one back before half-time to make the score at the break 28-5.
The home side then added three more tries after the interval to close to within six points, but then Oaks pulled away again with further scores by Hayden Coles, Jack Tweedie and Kieran Jamieson to progress through to the semi-finals.
In the Devon Junior Cup, both OPMs and Plymouth Argaum handed their opponents walkovers. OPMs had been due to visit Salcombe, while Argaum should have been playing Honiton.
Tamar Saracens also handed Tavistock a walkover in the Plymouth Combination Lockie Cup.
Meanwhile, Devonport Services thirds beat University of Plymouth II 65-12 in a Combination Merit Table game. Services II were handed a Devon 2nd XV Cup walkover by Cullompton II.
All pictures are low resolution and are protected by copyright so should not be used without permission.