MOUNTS BAY   47   HRFC   17

National 3 South

In an entertaining game, delayed by half an hour due to the breakdown of the Hav team coach on the way to Penzance, the huge difference in 'resources' showed, as the home team, where Hav's 'Player of the Year' last season, 'Chookie' Cheung Fook now 'plies his trade', unsurprisingly ran out comfortable winners.

The kick off was delayed half an hour, due to the Havant coach breaking down on the way to the ground, but it only took Mounts Bay 2 minutes to open the scoring with a  push over try  from their captain Nick Burnett,  which was converted by Lee Jarvis 7-0.

Havant woke themselves up with an immediate response after a fine run by Steve Cruddas. Havant were awarded a penalty, for Mounts Bay holding on to the ball, which Pucs converted 7-3.

With this success, Havant started to dominate the next phases of the game, which resulted in a try for Matt Morgan after a good break from Richard Buck. With Pucs' conversion Havant were leading 7-10, this stunned the large Mounts Bay support, with only 10 minutes of the game gone.

The home team came back at Havant with their forwards now starting to link well with the centres. Mounts Bay ran in 4 tries, starting with Jon Marlin on 23 minutes and converted by the reliable Lee Jarvis, 14 -10.

With Steve Stapleton being yellow carded for illegally stopping a try, Mounts Bay made Havant pay with an unconverted try from Burnett 19 -10.

Next there were two converted tries from Mounts Bay by T.Eyveans in the space of 4 minutes, the first from a well worked play with the centres, and the second was a kick over Havant defence, only for the ball to take a wicked bounce straight into Eyveans hands, this made the half time score 33– 10

Mounts Bay started the second half where they left off with a try by Tom Outram, and converted by Jarvis, 40-10.

With the match won, Mounts Bay made several changes to their team, and also had two players sin binned. Havant started to put pressure on their defence, which resulted in a try in the 58th minute from Richard Buck  after collecting  his own high hanging kick , Pucs landed the easy conversion, 40- 17.

Havant had the misfortune of a try being disallowed in the 72nd minute for a knock on (even to the amazement of the Mounts Bay fans) after fine work by the centres.

After the disallowed try, Mounts Bay finished the stronger with them running in their seventh try by Mosey with Jarvis again converting – final score 47-17.

Havant forwards had a workman like day, dominating in phases of the game, but Mounts Bay centres were always in control. Three defeats on the trot, with no bonus points, isn't quite the start that Havant would have wanted. It wasn't much of a surprise to find 'rapidly rising' Mounts Bay too much to handle, but 'alarm' bells will really start to ring if Havant can't get a proper return from their home match against Ealing next Saturday: still 'Nil desperandum!!'

Hav:

R. Adams, R. Buck. M. O’Shea, S. Stapleton, C. Brember, Pucs Ngapaku, S. Cole (G. Morris 79), S. Ingram (O. North 79), S.Cruddas, K. Randle, B. Morgan, A. Ramus, D. Beynon, H. Heasmann, M. Morgan

Replacements not used:

A. Davenport, O. Matini

Hav scorers:     

Tries M. Morgan, R. Buck, Con:  Pucs 2, Pen: Pucs

Mount Bay scores:

Tries: 7 Con: 6

Match Report provided by 'cub reporter' Nigel Dade