South West Intermediate Cup final

Trowbridge 20,

Ivybridge are determined to bounce back from their national cup loss tomorrow when they face Penryn at Cross-in-Hand.

The Green and Blacks will be looking to reclaim the top spot in the league from Teignmouth, who are currently one point ahead but have played two more games.

Coach Neil Thomson was impressed with his charges' performance in training on Tuesday night, and said that lessons have already been learned from the narrow defeat to Trowbridge.

He said: 'It was obviously a disappointing result, what with being so close at the end, and the boys were gutted.

'But training was superb this week, the pitch is looking good and the boys are determined to push on, win the league title and see what we can do against Sidmouth in the Devon Cup semi-final.

'It's a big month for us and we're looking to bounce back with a five-point win against Penryn tomorrow.'

The home team welcome back centre Jordan Anderton into the mix and Thomson said it is likely that lock George Wilson will also come on at some point.

The game almost started in ideal fashion for Ivybridge as they stole the ball from the kick-off, but fly-half Matt Grieveson opted for an ambitious pass with an overlap outside him and the ball went to ground.

Soon after Ivybridge earned a shot at the posts but Grieveson was unable to convert the opportunity.

A tight first half ended 6-3 in the hosts' favour, and early in the second things got even worse for the visitors. A missed penalty to touch allowed Trowbridge to counter and earn a penalty of their own.

Trowbridge kicked successfully to touch and formed a driving maul from the line-out to score a try and go 13-3 ahead.

With a 10-point deficit to make up, Ivybridge sprung into life and did manage to reduce this through a second penalty for 13-6, before they were again undone by a line-out catch and drive to slip 20-6 behind.

It was now that the visitors finally started to show glimpses of what they could do, and constant pressure saw Grieveson knock over three quick penalties to bring them right back into the match at 20-15.

The last 10 saw Ivybridge camped on the Trowbridge line, but try as they might they couldn't find a way through.