With much anticipation Honiton Dimonds took to the field looking keen and determined.
Even with injuries still keeping a few players sidelined, Honiton U14’s still managed a 21 man squad for their first match of the season.
Honiton started lively keeping position through many phases of play, looking confident with ball in hand and playing 15 man rugby. However after 10 minutes it was Exeter who broke through first with strong running to open the score sheet, and continued to look comfortable scoring another 2 before the break. Only a great individual effort from Marcus, cutting up the oppositions defence to score under the posts before half-time, and Eric adding another 2, that allowed honiton to go into the break on a positive.
Playing with the slope in the second half the Dimonds again started well and looked confident, passing the ball through the hands, eventually leading to well worked tries from backs allowing Marcus a 2nd and Aiden to go over, and not forgetting the extras from the foot. With Exeter still looking strong it wasn’t long before they scored another and this time added the conversion to be 1 point up with 10 minutes remaining, however another fine display of ball handling saw the ball come wide allowing Barry to comfortably dot down the ball for his first try of the season and the U14,s to go in front. With Eric slotting over his 4th conversion out of 4, the Dimonds sealed the lead and ended on top at the final whistle.
A Great performance from the boys in their opening match and wonderful to see the 5 new squad members getting on the field and making a difference.
Some solid performances from Marcus, Leon,Kane, Both Harry’s and Tyler however
awards today went to Aiden for his fine display of solid tackling and MOTM went to Eric for making the difference with the boot.