Injury-plagued Tiverton suffers narrow 29-28 Devon Cup loss to Torquay

Leading by 16 points, Tiverton is overcome by injuries and a late Torquay comeback

Tiverton were left licking their wounds in more ways than one after Torquay Athletic came from behind to defeat them 29-28 in the Devon Intermediate Cup.

If losing to a side from two divisions below on the league ladder wasn’t bad enough, Tiverton were 21-5 ahead at one stage.

And they were still in front with five minutes to go before Torquay took the lead for the only time in the match.

What was even worse for the Tiverton management was the lengthy catalogue of injuries collected during the game, which included a broken leg for Alex Curtis. He suffered a fractured fibula after being stood on in the fourth minute of the match.

“Due to injuries to Jack Sampson and Mike Butt we had no scrum-half cover in the squad – and then we lost stand-in captain Jonny Fairclough to a pulled hamstring,” said Tiverton coach Jon Hill.

“Next, we lost fly-half Callum Stone and hooker Matt Elliott to concussion so ended up with a prop at hooker, a prop in the second row, a winger at scrum-half and a full-back at fly-half. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong.”

Tiverton were in a promising position at half time as tries from debutant Freddie Compson, full-back George Whiting and Ben Bingham on the wing helped them into a 21-5 lead. Henry Sellick converted all three.

All Torquay had on the board at the time was a solitary try from Joel Armitage.

Armitage added a second try after the break, converted by Lewis Crocker, to get the score back to 21-12. Whiting’s second try restored the previous status quo.

While Tiverton emptied their bench, keeping 12 fit men on the field, Torquay were ringing the chances to bring on fresher legs.

Bit-by-bit the deficit was whittled away thanks to tries by Ben Sharples then Andrew Gormley, both converted by Crocker.

Five minutes from time Tiverton infringed in front of their posts and Torquay full-back Mawgan Penrice booted the Tics into a one-point lead.

Tiverton made one final attempt to snatch the tie back, but were turned over at a five-metre line-out and the chance was lost.

It’s Teignmouth at home this Saturday for Tiverton, who hope to welcome back Matt Hague, Blake Lugg, Mike Butt, Mike Owen and Dave Harris, none of who, were available to the day out at the seaside.