AXMINSTER Town were beaten, but not disgraced, when they met promotion seeking Budleigh Salterton.

A very even first half saw the sides head into the Sector Lane dressing rooms at half-time all square.

The visitors stepped up a gear in the opening exchanges of the second half and scored a brace of goals that put them in the box seat.

To their credit, the Tigers continued to work tirelessly, despite being disadvantaged with the loss of the influential Richie Emmett to a groin injury.

The home side were very much ‘in the contest’ through until the closing stages and received glowing praise from both sets of supporters at full-time.

Boss Nick Ogden said: “We have come off the pitch having matched the second best team in the league for long periods of the contest. The players deserve a lot of credit for their hard work. If we can repeat efforts like this until the end of the season then I am confident we will enjoy some better success. I thought we were beaten by the better team on the day, and, you have to be honest and say they deserved it because they had that extra bit of quality. The only thing we didn’t really do was create any real scoring opportunities but that was down to the opposition’s hard work.”

Ben Turner was named the Tigers Man of the Match and this Saturday Ogden’s men make the short trip to Washbrook Meadow, Ottery St Mary, for another East Devon derby.