Sidmouth 15, Exmouth 10 A hastily rearranged fixture saw Sidmouth Under-11s meet their Exmouth counterparts in a very friendly atmosphere at Sidford, writes Craig Morgan.

Sidmouth were late arriving whilst a huge Exmouth squad went through their impressive Royal Marine inspired warm-up!

Sidmouth’s game plan was to get the ball wide and develop their passing game. From the first ruck, with team play ethos ringing in his ears, Sidmouth’s precocious inside centre blasted through his opposite number, chipped over the full back, caught the ball cleanly and glided in unopposed for an awesome solo try within the first 30 seconds. How can a coach ask a player not to do that!

Late in the first half, in the face of Exmouth’s huge pack, the Sidmouth forwards supplied some clean ball and our threes executed a text book draw and pass manoeuvre exploiting the final two-versus-one and sent Ben Scrivens scampering in for a perfect team try.

Exmouth then dominated the game with powerful forward play which resulted in their first try. An impressive charge down from Exmouth’s scrum half caught out Sidmouth’s fly half and the resulting score left things finely balanced. However, after using all their subs and losing their delicate fly half to injury Sidmouth forced their way over for the winning third try.

A Barbarian style second match was played where Sidmouth’s team were allowed to play in any position they wanted against Exmouth’s fresh second squad. Unusual shapes and sizes filled different berths and gave some cracking performances, however, neither team troubled the scorer.