FT: 25-42

Ivybridge: Tries- Charlie Briant, Thomas Scoles 2 Cons- Matthew Grieveson 2 Pens- Matthew Grieveson 2

Brixham: Tries- Kai Allton, Mitchell Pinkus, Jordan Green, Matthew Crosscombe 2, Joel Ashworth Cons- Mitchell Pinkus 6  

Ivybridge were too comfortably brushed aside by Brixham, further compounding their poor start to the season.

Before kick-off both teams had struggled to get going and make their mark on their league, hoping that a derby victory could kickstart their season.

Brixham started off the sharper of the two sides, with their rolling maul racing towards the try line and bundling over after two minutes, crucially getting the first points on the board.

Moments later Brixham were once again powering towards Ivy’s try line, thanks to a huge 50-22 from their fly-half. This time they broke away from their maul and passed it to their fly-half whose quick feet stepped through the tightest of gaps and dotted the ball down under the posts, doubling the Fishermen’s lead with not even 10 minutes on the clock, silencing the partisan home crowd.

Brixham’s combination of a dominant maul and an accurate kicking game was working a treat, keeping Ivy pinned back in their own half for the opening quarter of the game. However, shortly before the 20 minute mark Ivy made the most of two cheap Brixham penalties with outside centre Charlie Briant darting through from close range to get Ivy’s first try of the afternoon.

This only proved to be a brief moment of respite for Ivy as Brixham’s backs rapidly moved the ball to their full-back running an aggressive line through the Ivy defence before playing through their winger to finish off the coast to coast move. Ivy’s error count kept increasing and constantly gave the ball back to Brixham whenever they were building up any sort of momentum.

Ivy did eventually find themselves camped five metres out from Brixham’s try line but phase after phase Brixham stood up and forced Ivy to settle for three points after a number of advantages. Nevertheless, Ivy shortly found themselves further behind as Brixham motored up the pitch, culminating in a well-drilled backs move with runner confusing Ivy’s defence, their winger found the gap and accelerated over the line to secure the try bonus point for his side. Ivy did manage to get another penalty before half-time, leaving the pitch 15 points behind at half-time.

Ivy came out the quicker in the second half turning up the pressure on Brixham and looking like they were going to slash the deficit going into the final quarter of the match. However, at a lineout seven metres out a wayward throw halted the momentum Ivy had built at a crucial point in the game.

As momentum shifted back to Brixham their scrum continued to reign supreme and served as the platform for their full-back to further extend their lead, scoring under the posts. Ivy did score two more tries before full-time with substitute Sam Brown playing two nearly identical looping mis-passes to winger Thomas Scoles who scored twice in the corner. However, both scores were too late on as Brixham dotted down in the corner once again for their final score of the game to putting this Devon derby to bed.

Ivy’s mistakes and inaccuracy cost them gaining any sort of foothold in this game. Brixham’s clever kicking game kept them parked in Ivy’s half for nearly all of the first half, coupled with their forwards set piece and backs accuracy allowed the Fishermen to sail away with maximum points.