NEWENT endured a tough day on the road as Exmouth ran out 41-8 winners in their Regional 1 South West clash, writes Paul Dando.

The opening period set the tone for Newent, who made too many unforced errors, giving Exmouth field position. After 10 minutes of pressure, prop Charlie Gibbings opened the scoring, with Dan Mugford converting.

Newent responded well and, after Exmouth’s fullback was yellow-carded for preventing the visitors playing the ball at a ruck, Tom Webb slotted the resulting penalty.

Mugford added a penalty before Gibbings crossed again from a lineout and maul, with Mugford converting to make it 17-3 at half-time.

Exmouth struck soon after the restart when a powerful run from flanker Nick Headley resulted in a try under the posts for Tom Lomax, converted by Mugford.

A powerful Cockles maul then set up Ollie Dawe for another try out wide, before the hosts added another score after winning a contested lineout and kicking into Newent’s 22.

Newent began to put together some good phases and enjoyed their best period of the match during the final 20 minutes.

The visitors continued to press despite being frustrated by determined home defence and a series of penalties.

A great move down the right, started by Webb and carried on by Adrian Connelly, took Newent inside the home 22 before scrum-half Lomax was carded for a foul.

Newent were eventually rewarded when Kyle Towers crossed in the left-hand corner, although Webb could not add the difficult conversion.

But after Newent had played much of the rugby late on, Exmouth winger Ned Brown scored in the final minute as the visitors tried to play from deep.

Head coach Sam Goatley said Newent’s second-half fight was a positive but admitted their performance was “nowhere near where we need it to be”.