Brave Brixham beaten by Exmouth

Brixham suffered a 34-21 defeat at Exmouth in another fantastic advert for attacking rugby in Devon.

 The Fishermen travelled with intent and soon had the first score on two minutes, Joel Ashworth went over and converted his own try, 0-7. A couple of minutes later, the Cockles hit back through a lovely Jake Inglis try, completed by a stunning touchline conversion from the boot of George Meadows, kicking with a swirling stiff breeze.

It was important that the home side increased their lead with the wind, which they did with three further tries from Liam Bayley, Matt Ryan and Lewis Geran, all a mixture of crash, snipe and tricky pace. Meadows added two more swirling conversions, 26-7 at half-time.

The scrum and defensive set from Exmouth was impressive throughout, even when interchanges were made. Gareth Roebuck stepped up and slotted a penalty to increase the lead 29-7.

Then, in a six-minute period of broken play where defence slipped, Brixham hit back with two tries from Joel Ashworth and Harry Rodwell, Ashworth converting both, 29-21.

Any hopes of a Brixham comeback were finally quashed when home skipper Dave Bargent hit a lovely line from halfway to run in the final try of the afternoon, 34-21 final score.

Sam Dennis, Harry Davies and Jordan Hodge all scored tries in a battling Paignton display that ended with a 15-21 loss at home to Penryn, while Torquay trounced Plymouth Argaum, winning 69-0 on the road.