Playing competitive rugby and entering the league system means you might end up in the Devon and Cornwall league for your sins, writes Roger Dance.

This is where Honiton are at the moment and to show how difficult it is for amateur clubs and it’s players, this meant the trip to Falmouth started with a 10.30am meet time!

Falmouth playing wise, are struggling this season and are a team who are two below Honiton in the league. This was defiantly a winnable game for Honiton, but unavailability’s, injuries and a last minute drop-out put a lot of pressure on actually getting a side together which got worse as the week went on.

Fortunately for the club the second team game was called off and several willing and positive individuals put plans on hold to fill in the disappointing gaps.

You’d be forgiven for expecting a cricket score line given the woes, but with a bit of the ‘Alamo’ sprit Honiton dug deep throughout.

Unfortunately, within five minutes of the start, Honiton were another key man down as a try saving tackle from Andy Canniford resulted in a bizarre injury!

A ‘stanley knife-like cut’ just above his knee saw him carted off to hospital for several stitches to be administered, something in the ground was blamed!

Honiton soldiered on and did compete, but the home side spun the ball wide and scored a couple of quick tries. Ben Webber kept Honiton in the game with a couple of well struck penalties, but with the home side’s tails up, they scored again to go in at half time 21-6 up.

More bad news for the Lacemen after the break saw Robert Price forced to leave the filed with a reoccurring hand injury and, with the final substitute already in play, more readjustment was required!

Falmouth capitalised on this and again scored. After this the next twenty minutes were positive for Honiton and they took the game to the opposition to enjoy their best spell of the match.

There was an opportunist try for Martin Keep who gathered a ball in his own half and won the foot race from there to the line. Honiton tired though and the home side put the game to bed with two more tries in the final quarter. The final score line of 36-11 didn’t come as a surprise to anyone given the difficult day.

Once again there was no shortage of effort from those who played and hats off to those who jumped in to help out. The disappoint bit though was this was a very winnable game as the makeshift side showed and I hope this result does not come back to haunt them and it was a day to forget!

On Saturday there’s no game for the Lacemen so there is time to regroup before three more difficult fixtures on the run in to Christmas.