HOniton made the long trip down to the Roseland peninsular in to deepest darkest Cornwall to play their last away Cornish fixture. Roseland the host, have had a torrid season thus far and are currently second from bottom in what is a tough league.

Honiton set off at 10am, with several changes to personnel and a new skipper for the day, in Chris Huskins, but they were in buoyant mood as they took to the field.

Unfortunately, they had a less than auspicious start as, with in minutes, they lost influential prop Mick Huskins with a torn calf muscle. Phil “the power” Pavey jumped into his slot. This disruption and a bright start from the rather large host and two kicked penalties saw Honiton on the back foot for the first 10 minutes.

However, with the long journey out of the system and a general settling down, Honiton hit the opposition with a blitz of three well-worked tries. Excellent ball retention and recycling combined with slick hands all went to produce tries for centre Josh Barrett, prop Isaac Dalton and eight Josh Rice, with three well taken conversions from Glenn Channing

Honiton were in the driving seat. Tails up and, again, good handling saw Honiton put a further three tries in to the opposition in the remainder of the half. Ben Webber skinned his man for the first, Barrett got his second via route one and try of the half was dotted down by Ben Small, following a move that went from Honiton’s ten yard line, across and back the field three times for and unopposed score in the corner.

Channing converted all three and Honiton turned round an impressive 42-6 up.

The second half was a little more torrid for the Lacemen as the home side recovered from the shock of the try blitzed first half and using their size, the slope and wind they camped in Honiton’s half for several long periods.

Honiton defence is really quite good now a days and, despite the pressure, the line held firm throughout.

In the last 20, Honiton’s fitness showed and, following several breaks, especially from fullback Ollie Rice, Honiton were able to get behind the defence and, with slick hands from both backs and forwards, blitz the line again with scores from Luke Kenny and the hard working Jason Hannay. Andy Canniford rounded off an excellent 20 minutes as a sub with two great tackles and a brace of tries thrown in. Channing only missed one kick all day, and that one shaved the post.

Honiton ran out comfortable winners by 68-6 in what was a really good team performance.