Sidmouth Under-8s took three teams for their second meeting with Exmouth in as many weeks.

The previous meeting had seen the Sidmouth youngsters win all nine of their matches against teams from Withycombe and Exmouth.

However, on their home ground Exmouth proved to be a very different proposition!

The first Sidmouth team drew two of their matches and won two. The difference between the sides was again Sidmouth’s superb tagging. Herbie Isherwood once again showed his fluid running style to score a number of tries whilst Ben Brook and Tom Bird provided a stalwart defence. Zac and Luca Arver worked well together as usual using aggressive defense to win lots of turnover ball and then convert that possession into points.

The second team left themselves with a lot to do after the first couple of minutes of each match due to over exuberant support running, ending up in forward passes and getting caught offside!

However, as each game progressed the team concentrated well and scored some good tries and, I all but one case, managed to pull deficits back to bag draws!

Matthew Thomas was one individual to stand out, scoring a brace of weaving tries from his own half, passing multiple opposition players en route to the line!

Jude Sykes showed great improvement making a number of important breaks with the ball in hand. The final score was three draws and one close loss at 5-4.

The other team fielded won three and drew one. The drawn game was arguably the finest Under-8 match played by the age group at Sidmouth this season with two turnover balls from Sidmouth tagging seven times in a row and great finishes from Scott Monro Higgs and Jack Pugh.

Exmouth however, stuck to their guns and after forcing Sidmouth out into touch they battled back to share the spoils. Toby Sanford again had a standout game for the number of tags he took.