Tribute South West One West

Camborne 32

Ivybridge face a trip across the bridge to St Austell tomorrow with a full squad of players and a 100 per cent record to protect writes Tim Leigh.

The Bridge top the table and are the only team in the league to have picked up an attacking bonus point in every single one of their games so far.

St Austell sit bottom of the table having picked up just one win this season in the league, and Ivybridge spokesman Jim Edington admitted his side will go down there full of confidence.

He said: 'We're looking forward to the game, we've got a bit of a dilemma in terms of selection, with plenty of options in the pack, but that's how coaches earn their money.

'We're just looking to make it seven out of seven. We've had a bit of a habit this season of letting teams back into games when we're well up, so that is definitely something for us to work on.'

The Camborne game certainly fell into that category, as Ivybridge let a 19-point lead slip to allow a thoroughly determined Camborne side to grab both an attacking bonus point and a losing bonus point.

The game, at Cross-in-Hand, began in perfect fashion for the Bridge, with good handling from both forwards and backs releasing winger Hayden Coles, who made good ground before putting in the supporting number eight, Justin Rogers, for a try.

Fly-half Matt Grieve­son was on target with the conversion to give Ivybridge a 7-0 lead.

Camborne, who played a forward-oriented game, used a series of pick and drive moves to good effect soon after to win a penalty which number 10 Dave Mankee slotted to reduce Ivies' advantage to four points.

With quarter of an hour played Camborne made impressive pro­gress with their driving maul before spreading the ball wide to Man­kee, who scored and converted his own try to put Camborne ahead for the only time in the game at 7-10.

With 24 minutes gone, Camborne in­fringed and Grieveson made no mistake to level matters. Four minutes later another infringement was duly punished to allow the Bridge to edge ahead.

Ivybridge were beginning to flow now, and more slick passing allowed Rogers to bag his second of the game wide out, Grieveson missing the tough kick.

An offside soon afterwards gave Camborne the chance to reduce the deficit, and Mankee obliged to make it 18-13. Ivybridge had the last say in the first half, however, as a penalty was kicked to touch, with Loomes taking the line-out and back Billy Pinkus charging over under the posts. Grieveson's simple kick gave Ivybridge a lead at the whistle of 25 points to 13.

Camborne came out fired up after the break and 10 minutes in the forwards again provided the key to unlock the home side's defence, a catch and drive move resulting in a converted try.

The match then remained scoreless until the last 10, when it exploded into life. Another good Ivies' line-out move saw the ball spread wide to full-back Tom Scoles, who demonstrated his finishing skills. Grieveson was again on target to make the score 32-20.

Four minutes later that man Scoles was in once again for a converted try and Ivybridge looked secure at 39-20 up.

Camborne, however, had other ideas, and two converted tries, the second in the dying seconds, gave them just rewards for their endeavours, but could not prevent a deserved Ivybridge victory.