A depleted Totnes Rugby Club travelled to the Bonfire Fields, Topsham, last Saturday to take on the Devon One leaders, with a large number of players absent attending a christening.

In one way traffic, Totnes were thrashed 66-22.

Totnes were without some of their regular key first-team players, including outside-half, scrum-half, prop and hooker, with these positions filled by players from the Legends.

It is said that the age of the Totnes players in the front row totalled 120 yrs, while the Topsham front row had an average age of 20 years.

This is not an excuse for this high-scoring match and one can see why this young Topsham outfit are top of the league.

Whenever the home side gained ball they ran it from all over the field.

Even at half time, Totnes struggled and found themselves 40-12 down.

The scorers for Totnes were Josh Green, who dived over in the corner after rare Totnes pressure, and Jamie Mitchelmore.

Totnes full-back Mitchelmore got what was undoubtedly the try of the match when he gathered a loose Topsham ball on his 30m line before setting off solo down the Topsham touch line.

With his turn of speed he dodged and burst through tacklers before touching down under the post for a fine individual try.

In the second half Totnes came back into the game for a 12-minute period and from being camped on the Top­sham line, Elliot Browse tapped a ball from a line-out to winger Si Parris, who barged over in the corner.

Four minutes later it was captain Elliot Browse who stole a ball in the line-out and broke through the opposing line to crash over wide out.

Things started to get worse for Totnes, with injuries to Si Parris (dislocated finger) and Elliot Browse (knee injury).

This was followed by the referee issuing two yellow cards to Totnes players for technical offences.

There were some encouraging signs of improvement in the second half for Totnes and some good play came from Akey in the centre, who put in some bursting runs up field, and newcomer Nick Watts, playing on the wing showed promising flair for the future.

Man of the match was Topsham’s winger Jiggy Tapp, who scored four tries against Totnes, closely followed by their goal kicker Jack Saunders, who converted most of Topsham’s tries.

Meanwhile, Totnes ladies’ team the Bluebirds travelled to St Austell on Sunday and came away with an impressive 40-22 win against an experienced side.