Report courtesy of the Herald Express

Torquay Athletic's director of rugby Colin Rylance is still trying to work out how his side managed to lose against Exmouth last Saturday.

A dour Devon derby went Exmouth's way as they missed fewer penalties to win 9-3.Rylance said the game was no great spectacle, but Torquay could and should have won it.

"All I can say is I am glad I didn't have to pay to watch it," said Rylance. "It was very, very dour and nothing special to watch, but we should have won it.

"If I said we had 70 per cent of the play it would be no exaggeration. What we couldn't do is score, although we were closer to scoring tries than they were.

"Twice we had tries disallowed when we got over the line but couldn't get the ball down and the referee gave held-up.

"Exmouth got away with slowing the game down and killing the ball on the floor and by the time the referee sin-binned someone we were in the last three of four minutes and it wasn't going to make much difference."

Defeat cost Torquay their share of top spot in the South West Two table and dropped them down to fourth, although they are only two points adrift of joint leaders Barnstaple and Exmouth.

The important thing for Torquay is not to slip up away to St Mary's this Saturday and lose even more ground before they play Barnstaple on November 24.

Torquay are now level on points with Taunton, the result of whose game against Barnstaple this Saturday will be of particular interest to Tics followers.