Otley 3 Plymouth Albion 36

Plymouth Albion, desperate to bring top-class rugby to Devon, continued their good start at Otley to sit top of National One with the only 100 per cent record.

Like Otley, they lost a number of players in the close season, which meant the two sides were vastly different to those who turned out in April at Cross Green.

Otley's hopes were not helped by having Dan Hyde, Maifea Maifea, Nathan Bland and Andy Brown unavailable and, by half-time, they had replacements on for skipper Ian Shuttleworth, Simon Binns and Rob Whatmuff.

Owen Edwards came on after 23 minutes at full back before changing to fly half after the break, with Danny Smith dropping back to 15.

All this was most unsettling but Otley played some excellent rugby in the last quarter, Steve Parsons almost getting through after a scintillating break out of his 22 by scrum half Neil Chivers and Smith was within a whisker of scoring.

As expected, Graham Dawe's men played a hard forward game, although they were moving the ball much more.

However, Simon Binns gave the hosts the lead with a penalty when Shuttleworth was brought down by a defender coming in from the side.

But Plymouth hit back and, when Dave Whitehead was yellow-carded, the resultant penalty saw hooker Richard Oxley driven over.

Full-back Wihan Neething then began a purple patch. A 40-metre penalty and a conversion of a try from Colin Stewart was followed by two further penalties to establish a 21-3 half-time lead and, within five minutes of the restart, had added yet another penalty and converted his own try.

Albion then found themselves under pressure as Ben Gulliver received a yellow card but Otley were unable to finish and a fourth try was conceded on 67 minutes when No 8 Tom Hayes broke through.