Sidmouth Under-9s power to big win at Crediton

After back to back wins against Saracens, Teignmouth and Cullompton it was off to Crediton for the final game of 2014, for the Sidmouth Under-9s, writes Jon Manning.

A soggy Mid Devon surface did not look ideal for the fleet-footed Sidmouth players.

In a slick and confident start Sidmouth made good early yardage and it was no surprise to see Ollie Marsh and Morgan West burst through for early tries.

The Sidmouth defence looked well-organised with plenty of hard tackling and the regular winning of turnover ball. At the end of the first quarter Sidmouth had scored five tries to the one from the hosts and that would prove to be their only score of the contest!

Rolling substitutions by Sidmouth saw a different line-up start the second quarter, but it didn’t change the direction of traffic as the game continued to flow one-way in Sidmouth’s favour with four more tries being recorded.

Tries apart, it was the impressive relentless tacking by the entire squad that made the difference, epitomised by Zoe Allen, the smallest player on the pitch, dumping the Crediton player at the restart!

When the home side did break through and looked certain to score a second try each time they were denied by powerful Morgan West tackles and, on another occasion a flying tackle from Luca Manning saved a home score.

The next Sidmouth try came when Will Pullman ran the full length of the pitch to score another try before the game saw some more furious tackling by Ben Elsom and then a try stopping tackle by Tom Cloud that brought the third quarter to an end.

In the final quarter there was much to admire from the Sidmouth performance. The side-stepping magic of Finn Cotton was too much for Crediton whilst some excellent tackling by George Tanner saw the home side pushed back on a regular basis.

An outstanding all-round display ended o the final whistle with the Sidmouth players giving a resounding three cheers to the hosts before a rendition of ‘Merry Christmas’