Sidmouth Colts started their league campaign in superb style as they saw off Crediton at Sidford, writes Jack Colwill.

Sidmouth kicked off and applied instant pressure on Crediton, the forwards winning clean ball at the breakdowns and the backs looking sharp. They made a quick breakthrough out wide, with winger Jamie Balloch going over in the corner.

This was followed swiftly by a try on the other wing, scored by Rob Jones. Crediton came back at Sidmouth, forcing them to defend on their line for a long period, before eventually finding a way over.

Sidmouth sprang back into action after this, with captain Jack Hodge leading the charge. Renewed pressure told when Mike Bond picked up from the back of a scrum and barrelled over under the posts.

A superb solo effort from fly-half Jevon Astley-Jones, who collected his own neat chip-kick to score, left Sidmouth with a half-time lead of 24-5.

Sidmouth did not let off the gas at the start of the second half, picking up where they left off, with winger Rob Jones quickly scoring two more tries to complete his hat-trick. The Sidmouth side were now running smoothly, with infrequent handling errors the only problem.

Crediton pulled a try back despite determined defence from Sid. There were strong individual performances from Gavin Pearson and Dan Rugg up front and James Bramley and Astley-Jones in the backline, the latter two scoring the final two tries including Astley-Jones’ solo effort from half-way.

He also added three conversions to give a final score of 46-12.

In this game, the forwards competed well against a strong Crediton pack, and the backs were often fluent in defence and attack.

his was a fine start to hopefully a successful league campaign.