Honiton went down 19-13 to Bodmin side sitting one place below them in the league, on a bitterly cold afternoon, writes Roger Dance.

When the pair met in Cornwall it was the Cornishmen who won comfortably.

However, with home advantage and a good win last week the Lacemen had high hopes of reversing the result this time out.

The Lacemen started with the Allhallows advantage and looked to be on top and they should have kicked two kickable goals in the first ten minutes but both were narrowly missed.

Honiton did have several chances to score tries and had final passes not gone a miss they could have been at least two tries up. Honiton did take the lead on the 30 minute mark when Webber found his range with a penalty, but Bodmin took advantage of Honiton relaxing and nipped down the blind side for an opportunist try moments later. They added to this with a well struck penalty to go 8-3 up. Honiton bounced back as half time loomed and it was Ben Small who crashed over to level the scores at 8 a piece as half time came around.

With the prospect of now defending the slope Honiton must have been kicking them selves for their earlier missed opportunities especially as the Bodmin goal kicker put them further ahead with a well struck penalty straight away. Honiton did get their nose ahead with a well worked try that Stephan Archer dotted down but the visitors bounced back with another penalty to go 14-13 up and it was now clear it was going to be a dog fight in the mud to the final whistle. Unfortunately, for the Lacemen, it was the visitors who had the final say as the scored again right on the final whistle and they won 13-19.

Honiton will be very disappointed with this result as it was clearly a game they should have won and as stated, they will rue the missed chances especially in the first half when they could have put the game to bed and to add salt to the wound, the result means Bodmin now leap frog Honiton in the league.

With Honiton up to date with their fixtures there is no game next week but they do have a difficult long away trip to Bude in two weeks time.