Nuneaton 22 Redruth 35

NUNEATON’S acid test ended in defeat as Redruth walked away from Liberty Way with a smart 35-22 verdict. After two wins against National One’s cannon-fodder Mike Umaga’s men came up against a powerful Redruth side, whose pack dominated throughout, and helped the Cornish side chalk up their first win of the campaign.

Redruth did well against highly-rated Esher last weekend and they carried that form to Liberty Way, with scrum-half Mark Richards going over after just five minutes.

Nuns were struggling to cope with the visitors’ brawn, and winger Lewis Vinnicombe doubled the advantage for Redruth shortly after to leave Nuneaton plenty to mull over in the opening exchanges.

But Nuns forced their way back into the clash when the prolific Elliott Brown snatched his first try of the afternoon from Nuneaton’s first real attack which Huw Thomas converted serenely, before Thomas kicked a penalty less than a minute later.

However, Nuns conceded twice in quick succession as Redruth fly-half Mark Scrivener scored a brace just before the interval to give the visitors some breathing space.

And Redruth made the game safe shortly after the break, when flanker Fraser Cillverd found himself at the base of a driving maul to touch down, while Mike Stupple racked up another score for Redruth to grab the four-try bonus point.

Nuneaton retaliated twice towards the end to make the scoreline look a little more respectable, as both Ben Avent and Brown crashed over, but their late efforts were of little consequence.

“If you don’t make tackles, then you don’t win games,” said Nuns’ chief Umaga. “We had several opportunities to stop conceding points, but we didn’t take them.”