Sidmouth Under-15s were clearly ‘rusty’ as they salvaged a 3-3 draw after looking down and out during their Exeter and District Youth League visit to West Exe on the opening day of a new season.

Games between these two sides are never dull and, once again, both teams attacked from the start and the goals soon started to flow.

Sidmouth made the brighter start and debutant Max Peacock drove into the box and lashed the ball home after just five minutes.

The game ebbed and flowed with both defences struggling to contain the attacking threat of the opposition.

Will Ashby and Ollie Truman made some crucial interventions but the team were indebted to keeper James Emmett who made a string of unbelievable saves to keep the Exiles at bay.

Sidmouth capitalised on this and went in to the break 2-0 up after a superb move primarily involving Tom Moore and Ben Goodier with the latter finishing with aplomb.

After half-time much of Sidmouth’s attacking play started to improve with the wide men starting to get more involved in the game.

However, defensively the visitors continued to struggle and with just five minutes left found themselves 3-2 down, despite more outstanding saves from Man of the Match Emmett!

One thing this particular Sidmouth team has not been short on as they have grown together from younger age groups is character and once again they showed real resilience and determination to not get beaten!

The excellent Luke Spiller chased a lost cause, capitalised on a mistake by the goalkeeper and slotted the ball home to level the scores.

The team understand that this was a bit of a let off and know that they must improve before this Saturday’s cup match in Exeter against the very same West Exe side!