Honiton held their annual vice presidents’ luncheon on Saturday which was then followed by the visit of Torrington for the penultimate home fixture of the season and a large Allhallows turnout was treated to a 58-0 Lacemen success, writes Jerry Rice.

Promoted to the division this season, Torrington have struggled to gain a foothold and are very much in the dog fight to try and stay up.

For Honiton there are no such worries, but there was the slight issue of missing three key forwards on the day.

Despite this, this did give the coaching staff the opportunity to give outings to several of the fringe players and with a large crowd and the rain gods having a day off, the stage was set for a good day’s rugby.

Honiton won the toss and elected to play up the slope and after a patient five minutes they were on the score sheet when Nathan Hannay broke thorough a weak tackle on the ten metre line; he then threw a dummy and cantered in under the post for the first score of the game and Ollie Cave tucked away the conversion.

Honiton then capitalised on a missed line-out and Cave broke the defensive line and fed Ben Kidson who was on his inside support line and he then jinked his way in under the posts; again the extras were duly added and Honiton were 14 up with only 15 minutes gone.

With Honiton fairly dominant in the scrums and line-outs it looked as if they would be scoring at will, but a combination of the visitors digging deep and Honiton becoming rather sloppy with final passes and unforced errors, tries went begging.

Honiton did eventually break the trend and scored just before half time when, this time, the hands went well and showing an excellent piece of finishing, Steve Trenchard scorched up the wing for Honiton’s third score.

Honiton turned round 19-0 and maybe the total should have been several more, but with the slope advantage now in the Lacemen’s favour things weren’t looking good for the North Devon visitors.

Their plight wasn’t helped when they got a yellow card for a professional foul as one of their players tried to prevent an early score.

It clearly didn’t work as moments later a good break from Wez Keywood was supported by Philip Cook who dotted down out wide. The conversion was well struck from out wide to add to the pressure.

The floodgates then opened and from a good break and neat dummy from Ollie Hyland, the inside pass saw Keywood dot down.

He should have had a second moments later but was fouled in the process of scoring, which meant Torrington had a second player binned. Cave then nipped through a gap to score under the posts and Dom Hawke also got on the list moments later after a good Louie Lane break. Trenchard got his brace as he skinned the defence again.

Hannay joined him at the brace party, after getting the ball from Cooke who’d broken through the middle of the defence.

For the visitor, the whistle couldn’t come quick enough. For Honiton clearly a 58-0 score line says it all in terms of dominance, but being picky, it definitely could have been nearer the 80 mark and, whist the Lacemen served up a 10 try fest for the VPs, there was clearly a lot of attacking errors, with several two on ones going begging. Trenchard got the Man of the Match award and he looked sharp thoroughout, and the boys who stepped in did their bit very well on what was a very entertaining day.

Looking ahead to Honiton’s cup final game at the end of the season, the Lacemen will have a much sterner ‘warm up’ test next week as they pop over the border to play champions Wellington.

Breaking through tackles, as they did this week, just won’t be happening and if they get any whiff of a chance, these will have to be taken as Wellington are a good outfit who are also looking for revenge.

Honiton were one of only two sides to beat them throughout the year and that was by a single point.

If you’re a Lacemen supporter it’s not far to go and your support there will definitely help.