National League Three South West

Old Patesians 9

Ivybridge will be hoping to make it two wins out of two in National League Three South West when they travel up to Barnstaple tomorrow for a Devon derby writes Tim Leigh.

Ivybridge’s senior manager Neil Thomson was pleased with the four points gained in his first game.

He said: ‘It was a good result in front of a big crowd, it’s nice to get the first win on the board.

‘Our defence patterns worked, it was pleasing not to concede a try, even when we went down to 14 men.’

Nonetheless, Thom­son was adamant his side were not going to rest on their laurels. He said: ‘Now we’ve got to go up to Barnstaple and try again, it would great to upset them, they won their first game and are an established team in this league.

‘I wouldn’t say the game was a classic, it didn’t seem to flow as well as it might as there was too many errors from both sides, we know we need to improve.

‘That said, sometimes you have to graft out wins and we did that, we showed our desire to win, which is what you want to see.

‘I thought flankers Alex Hall and Joe Walker, were both superb.’

‘We’ve got a couple of young guys joined the club, we’re being talked about in the area which is a good sign.

The Bridge got off to a stunning start in their new league when they notched their first try of the campaign with just 30 seconds on the clock against Old Patesians.

Old Pats made a mess of a kick and tried to run the ball out of their 22, but a stray pass saw Alex ‘Reggie’ Hall the quickest to react, and he gleefully sprinted in from 20 metres out.

Fly-half Matt Grieveson made no mistake with the conversion to give the home side a dream start in front of a large and vocal crowd at Cross-in-Hand.

Pats came back into it, and they scored two penalties to one by Grieveson to leave the score 10-6 approaching half-time.

With both sides falling foul of the referee in a hard-fought first 40 minutes, Grieveson saw yellow with two minutes to go to leave Ivy a man down for 10 minutes.

Ivybridge’s defence was heroic all game, a positive sign and one of the areas the coaches had been targeting as vital to success. Pats scored a third penalty while Grieve­son was off the field early in the second half to reduce the gap to just one point, but Ivybridge maintained their composure and kept their defensive line solid.

When the home side did go back to 15 men, Grieveson chanced his arm from a penalty advantage to nail a sweetly-struck drop goal from distance to give Ivybridge a 13-9 lead.

Mistakes from both sides meant the score stayed as it was for Ivybridge to cement their arrival in the national leagues with a hard-fought and de­served victory.