Withycombe v Newquay

Six-try Faulkner puts Withy in Seventh Heaven

Withycombe 72

Newquay Hornets 0

Withycombe's seventh win on the bounce since Christmas has set up a mouthwatering clash with title-chasing Tiverton next week, but the talk of the village on Saturday night was Jack Faulkner, who set a club record in bagging six tries in a league match.

Straight out of the blocks Faulkner was a menace, carving up from a set piece and offloading to Adam Morris to open the scoring. Six minutes later Mike Richards used the scrum to score Withycombe's second with a pushover effort. Faulkner then opened his account after a scrum won against the head gave him space to finish in the corner from distance. Richard Hodges then scored after some great interplay from the forwards and backs to wrap up the bonus point by half-time. At 24-0, Withycombe were comfortably in the driving seat in all departments, with Newquay struggling to win any first-phase ball whatsoever.

In the second half though Withycombe, and Faulkner in particular, put on the afterburners to leave Newquay trailing in their wake. First a loose ball from a Newquay lineout was snaffled by the home side, Glenn Channing spotting a wide-open Faulkner on the far side and putting the cross-field kick in acres of space for Faulkner's second. A minute later a kick ahead was regathered by Faulkner before outpacing the defence to cap his first hat-trick.

Not content with outpacing and outflanking the Hornets defence, Withycombe were keen to show that they could go through the opposition too. A couple of impressive driving maul tries, first from Will Cole and then Fridge Gibbons, put them 46-0 ahead, before it was back to business as usual with Leo Hood putting Faulkner away for his fourth. Richard Hodges got on the end of another bit of nice interplay from the forwards and backs before being shown a yellow card, not that it seemed to matter as Faulkner scored two length-of-the-field tries to round off his second hat-trick.

Withycombe 2nd XV narrowly went down at Crediton in the Merit Table. From 24-14 up, the sin binning of Glyn Cooke and Josh Bancroft cost them dearly as Crediton came back to win 26-24. Tries cam from Glen Layton (2), Keegan Ferreday and Neil Sharland. Layton kicked two conversions.