Honiton Under-11s travelled for an away ‘double-header’ taking on Dorchester and North Dorset RFC.

It turned out to be a mixed bag of performance and results for the Lacelads as they made another sluggish start and went on to show all-round lack of aggression in contact which ultimately led to a 20-0 reversal at the hands of North Dorset and a 15-0 defeat to Dorchester.

In those first two outings the team never got going and without the ball for any extended period of time they went down far too easily in both encounters.

With moral low it was imperative that Honiton began their third match strongly against Dorchester and they did just that with captain Osian Owen’s hard work being rewarded when he crashed over with the help of George Langrish to give his side an early lead.

With their tails up Honiton suddenly began to string the phases together and, with Edward Grimshaw finding space, the Lacelads began to dominate the territory. With the hosts enable to exit their 22 Honiton struck again when slick passing allowed Luke Matthews to run in and do his best Chris Ashton impression!

This score was quickly followed by a third from Joe Evans before Dorchester responded to complete the scoring, leaving Honiton 15-5 winners.

In their final encounter against North Dorset, Honiton paid the price for some soft tackling, and, within a blink of an eye, were three tries down before Isaac Stanbury ripped the ball in contact and powered over. With confidence restored the Lacelads came back fighting! Joe Evans showed considerable pace to grab two fine tries despite an unorthodox tackle attempt by the opposition fullback! With the scores level Honiton continued to push hard but, ultimately the superior power of North Dorset showed and they scored two more tries to edge the contest 25-15.

All in all it was a rugged but rewarding lesson for the Lacelads who must develop a more unyielding approach at the breakdown if they are to compete with the strongest teams.

In spite of the losses there were some strong performances with Osian Owen and Arthur Hattan tackling well. However, it was George Langrish who edged it with his most confident display to date.