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Tavistock 23, Ivybridge RFC 17

It was a case of deja vu for Ivybridge 1st XV on Saturday when they visited Tavistock for their third league match of the season and again left with a losing bonus point and a certain amount of 'what ifs'.

For the second week in succession they were clearly the dominant team in the final quarter of the match, but again were left wondering about the try that never was.

While last week the complaints centred around a penalty try that wasn't awarded despite two yellow cards, this time the men in green actually crossed the whitewash, only for an unsighted referee to decide he couldn't award it.

On a more positive note, Ivy's conditioning again seems to be excellent, with first team manager Jim Eddington describing their performance in the last quarter as totally dominant.

The match certainly started in positive fashion for the visitors, with good line-out ball and a fine backs move being finished off by Tom Scoles after just two minutes, the try converted by Tim Walker for a 0-7 lead.

However, the match took a turn for the worse minutes later when teenage winger George De Mendonca put his body on the line in the tackle and had to be carried off with a suspected broken collarbone.

This unfortunate incident threw Ivy off their game, and shortly afterwards Tavvy got on the scoreboard through a Charlie Furnival try.

With a quarter of an hour gone Ivy were pinged for offside and Tavvy's fly-half Richard West stroked over the resulting penalty to give the home side the lead by a single point.

Tavvy were now in the ascendancy, with West selling an outrageous dummy to cruise in under the posts and then convert his own score to put his side eight points clear midway through the first half.

Ten minutes later Tavvy extended their lead still further when blindside flanker Andy Shuttkaker went on a bullocking run to bring the score to 20-7, West missing the conversion.

After shipping 20 unanswered points, Ivy gave themselves a fillip just before half-time when fly-half Luke Martell clawed back three points with a penalty for a score at the break of 20-10.

The second half started with more pressure from the home side, and when Ivybridge were again caught offside on 45 minutes that man West stepped up to extend Tavvy's lead to 13 points.

Shortly after, Ivybridge were left bemused when the referee, spotting Tom Newman offside out on the wing, chose to brandish the yellow card, despite the fact he could hardly have been said to have been interfering with play in any meaningful way.

This decision proved the spark that Ivybridge needed, and the rejuvenated players held off Tavvy for the sin-bin period. Just after Newman returned to the field, they got the reward their play deserved, with prop Reece Adams crashing over.

With Martell adding the extras, Ivy were back within seven points and sensing a comeback.

With twenty minutes remaining, the fired-up visiting forwards were certain that prop Matt Finn had burrowed over, only for the unsighted referee to refuse to award the try.

The Bridge continued to pile on the pressure, and with fifteen minutes to go the Tavvy openside was shown yellow for killing the ball.

Ivy threw everything they had at the home side, who managed to cling on for victory and leave Ivy with a losing bonus point and the feeling that it could have been so much more.

Eddington was adamant that Finn had crossed the whitewash and grounded the ball, claiming that even the Tavvy coach Mike Lewis admitted the try, but Ivybridge supporters will merely have to hope that these things even themselves out over the course of the season.