Colts gain max points

Sidmouth gained a maximum five points from this four-try bonus point win at Sidford last weekend, writes Lee Sowden.

They were disappointed when Topsham only arrived with 13 players which meant both sides had to drop their flankers from the pack. This immediately meant a quick visit to the drawing board during the warm-up to practice five-man line-outs and scrummaging.

From the kick-off Topsham showed their intent to play a physical game with their larger pack driving up the park and came close to scoring twice in the first 10 minutes.

But a moment of stupidity by the Topsham No 8, late tackling Sidmouth’s fly half Ben Ward, saw him taking a 10-minute rest; Sidmouth put eight points on the scoreboard from which Topsham never recovered.

Ward kicked the resulting penalty and this was followed by great work by the forwards in Topsham 22 to put Dan Rugg into the corner.

Just after this the game took a turn for the worse as another Topsham player was injured so both sides had to drop to 12 players. This resulted in a very pacy game, more like seven’s style with the ball being thrown around everywhere.

Topsham conceded another penalty to which Ward converted followed by a cracking Charlie Cotton try which started in the Sidmouth’s half and went through all the backs hands before being scored in the corner. It went unconverted.

Sidmouth were in control and started to make use of the large contingent of reserve players using all 22 allowed, with rolling subs throughout the second half.

Topsham started to tire as Sidmouth exerted pressure which allowed George Barber to run in two individual tries, one of which Ward converted.

Yet again a fine team performance with all the junior Colts pushing hard for starting places within a competitive squad.