Devon Junior Cup

Dartmouth were made to work hard in their first-round defence of the Devon Junior Cup at Salcombe.

A spirited Salcombe side played well in the first half and it was a very tight game until the 34th minute, when a nice Dartmouth move involving Jake Bridgwood and Sam Pearson set up Karl Caunter for the first try of the match.

That was the only score going into the half-time break, with Dartmouth leading 0-5.

The second half started just as close, with Salcombe missing the chance to reduce the score with a missed penalty on 56 minutes. They did make up for it, though, with 13 minutes left, when they managed to breach the Dartmouth defence and score to level at 5-5.

That made for an interesting last 10 minutes, with Karl Caunter linking up well with Tom Clark to score his seventh try of the season on 73 minutes. Jack Clark kicked the conversion to make it 5-12.

With two minutes to play, Dec Hammond was handed a yellow card as he took one for the team, but Salcombe hit back and scored again; they had the chance to level the scores, but the conversion was narrowly wide, with meant Dartmouth led 10-12.

Straight after the restart, Dartmouth took control and with the last play of the match the Dartmouth backs spread the ball wide for Ben Peters to run into the corner and back inside for Lorien Spurdle to score. Dave Champion’s conversion made the final score 10-19.

Dartmouth had a weekend off before their trip to Plymouth tomorrow to take on Tamar Saracens in their final league match of the season. Round two of the Devon Junior Cup will then take place on Saturday, March 31, with Dartmouth travelling to either Ilfracombe or Topsham.