Hornets remain in fourth spot in the league, despite losing at Ivybridge.

Ivybridge 38 pts

Hornets 24 pts

Hornets travelled to Devon for the second of back-to-back games against Ivybridge. The hosts started strongly and did the real damage in the first 15 minutes, by which time Hornets found themselves 21-0 down.

With Hornets wobbling there was a moment in the game when it looked they might implode, but they held firm and slowly muscled their way back into the game.

On the half-hour, the momentum of the game changed when the imposing Ivybridge second row was shown a yellow card for an illegal tackle.

The visitings scrum took the opportunity to get a foothold in the game and opted for a scrum and shoved the home pack backwards and at the resulting breakdown, Kieran Ward squeezed over to score. Jermaine Jones converted for 21-7.

Soon after, Adam Francis made a break and offloaded to Jack Gadd, who immediately slipped a pass to Craig Nichols. He made good ground, but decided to throw a pass which went into touch.

With half-time approaching, Hornets were still on the front foot and after a quickly-taken penalty, Jones found Gadd lurking on the wing, who dived over to score. Jones again converted for a 21-14 half-time score.

Ivybridge started the second half well and despite Hornets’ defence dealing well with two threatening driving mauls, it was Ivybridge who scored their bonus point try to take a 26-14 lead.

Hornets bounced back again, first through Robert Dempsey who was having a great game on the wing and then again following a great break from Dempsey, who sprinted 30 metres before offloading to Chris Francis, who crashed the ball up.

When it was recycled, Conor Baker found himself in space to score. Hornets were now back to 26-24 and the game was there for the taking.

However, this week it was not to be and it was Ivybridge who finished the stronger, scoring two further tries towards the end of the game to finish with a 38-24 victory and in doing so guaranteeing themselves survival in National 3 for next season.

Hornets left Devon with a bonus point for scoring four tries and with other results going in their favour, they maintained their fourth position in the league.