Teams 
Bideford travelled to Cullompton for their latest Devon cup fixture. Bideford have formed a joint squad with South Molton for the cup games. In typical Bideford style they had a slow start. Cullompton who are a very good and well organised side had a number of strong ball carriers in their pack and centres who punched holes in Bideford’s defence. This led to Cullompton scoring two tries in the first 10 minutes. This seemed to wake Bideford up and their tackles got lower and they were able to force a turnover and then to score their own try, with Izzie using her speed and an excellent attacking line to break through the defence. Cullompton withstood a sustained period of Bideford attack with very good defence and then counter attacked to score a further try. After an early Cullompton try in the second half Bideford staged an aggressive comeback making good use of the speed and quick hand of the Bideford backs to get around the outside of the Cullompton defence for three well worked Bideford tries. A second try for Izzie and one for Zara. The pick of the tries went through the whole of the backline and was finished in the corner by Harriet for her first Bideford try. With Hannah converting 2 of these tries the scores were now close with Cullompton holding a narrow lead of 27 points to 24 with 8 minutes left. An error from Bideford at the restart from their final try gave Cullompton an attacking platform which they finished clinically, along with the conversion this stretched their lead to 34 points to 24 and they took control for the last couple of minutes to see out the game. Thanks goes to Cullompton for hosting, it was an exciting game with a lot of excellent rugby, which was played in a fantastic spirit.
Bideford’s forward of the match was Keeley whose hard work, as a human battering ram, carrying in the middle gave the backs space to exploit on the outside. Bideford’s back of the match was Gemma for her tenacious defensive display making a lot of decisive tackles on hard running Cullompton forwards and bringing a controlled calm to the backs attacking play.
