On a perfect day for playing rugby, Liskeard made the trip to Ivybridge to sample their excellent facilities for what turned out to be a very hard fought contest.

In recent matches, the Liskeard pack have perhaps lacked sharpness. This was not the case on this occasion as they tore into their counterparts. Ben Daniels was back to his belligerent best as he cut great holes in the home sides defences. Matt Twornicki was another who refused to be intimidated as he caused all sorts of problems for the opposition. These two were well backed up by Stewart Patten.

It was Daniels who opened the scoring when he charged over having taken a short line-out throw from the ever reliable John Strand who caused his opposite number at hooker all sorts of trouble in the scrums. Liskeard dominated the scrums, frequently pushing the Ivybridge pack backwards and denying them any real control. Nevertheless, after a Stuart Taylor penalty had made the score 8-0, Ivybridge were allowed to get back into the game with two tries during a period of slackness by the Liskeard team and it was only another Taylor penalty that gave the visitors a slender 11-10 half time lead.

Ivybridge came out for the second half with all guns blazing, but they were met by a team who by now totally committed. Within a few minutes, Twornicki had scored a real forwards try as the whole of the pack had driven their counterparts back from virtually the half way line with a rolling maul. Daniels got his second try a short time after to leave Liskeard in a comfortable position at 25-10 after Taylor had converted both.

At this point the battle really livened up. Credit to the home side who gave everything at this point to score another two tries to narrow the score to 25-17 and at this juncture a lesser team than Liskeard could have buckled. Steve Yeo at this stage was his usual committed self, as was Mark Davy as the tackles went in one after the other.

But it was not just the pack who put themselves in the firing line. John Catchpole had an excellent game at scrum half, as did new boy Daniel Payas at fly half. Captain David Hannah set the example perfectly, with a number of crunching tackles that stopped Ivybridge in their tracks as they desperately tried to close in on their visitors score. Ben Hudson also tackled like a demon and with Taylor making a number of good tackles at full back, the home side could just not find enough to overhaul Liskeard. The match was finally settled in Liskeard's favour when Taylor dropped a goal to take the final margin to 28-17.

In summary, this was a fine match played hard by two sides who gave everything.