MORE than 1,500 people from Cullompton travelled to London to watch the town’s rugby club win the Senior edf Energy Vase Cup on Saturday.

Cullompton ran out 8-7 winners against Tyldesley at Twickenham.

Cullompton reached the semi-finals of the EDF Energy Senior Vase last season where they lost out 13-15 at Wheatley Hills.

MATCH REPORT

Landscape gardener Mark Laskey dug Cullompton out of a hole with the try that secured their EDF Energy Senior Vase Final victory at Twickenham.

The 20 year-old from Exeter - the youngest player in the team - produced a cool piece of first-half finishing with plumber Ross Toms adding a straightforward penalty seven minutes after the break.

Tyldesley captain skipper Ashley Worsfold converted his own try against the run of play and somehow the Lancashire side clung on by their fingernails for long spells.

They even had chances to win in the closing moments as Cullompton nearly paid for their failure to take half-a-dozen decent chances.

"By half time we should have had it won - we definitely should have put a few two-on-ones away - and I think my heart must have stopped at least three times in the last 10 minutes," said Cullompton coach Charlie Mahon. "But it was an outstanding performance in terms of team commitment.

Defensively we were excellent, we really kept our head in the last few minutes when we might have given away a penalty that lost us the game."

Laskey, one of 16 Devon-born local heroes in the side, only joined the club last summer and now has a Twickenham winners medal to go with the league title sewn up last month. "It was a spectacular day," he said.

"I'd always dreamed of playing at Twickenham but to score here and win with all my teammates and with my family watching is something really special, a dream come true.

"I thought it was our game to lose at half-time but credit to Tyldesley, they pressured and pressured us and could still have won it in the last 10 minutes."

Cullompton dominated the first quarter, more ambitious in attack and willing to move the ball wide, although Mahon was certainly worried that they were unable to finish chances and vulnerable on the counter-attack. They put the first part right in the 27th minute, Tyldesley caught short of numbers on the right with Toms putting Laskey away for the winger to cut out and then in past the final two defenders to the line.

But Toms missed a testing conversion, then a long-range penalty, and suddenly Tyldesley were ahead against the run of play when they hacked the ball 30 metres down the left.

Former Liverpool St Helens fly half Worsfold darted past some sluggish defenders to touch down and supplied an excellent conversion from out wide to put the underdogs in front.

Early in the second half Tyldesley lost centre John Fisher to the sin-bin after his side somehow held up three concerted drives at the line and conceded a string of penalties.

Toms made no mistake this time by adding three points to take a one-point lead but his side were unable to add any more against 14 men and going into the last quarter he was wide with another 45-metre effort.

More chances then went begging - first the ball was knocked on wide on the right after Jemba Bull's fine break, then Harris, Brooks and Griffiths all went close before Tyldesley again fought their way out of the danger area with the likes of Shaun Pulman and Tom Cartwright coming off the bench to add some back-row impetus.

They even got into position for a couple of drop-goal shots, Mark Dickinson dragging one hurried left-footed effort wide from 30 metres.

Cullompton rallied though, with man of the match Sam Harris leading the way as he had done for most of the game, to force their way out of danger and finish a nerve-shredding second half on the offensive once more.

Cullompton: Marcus Busch; Mark Laskey, Ross Toms, Jemba Bull, Paul Baker; Alex Brooks, James Shere; Rob Hammett (captain), Chris Grant, Josh Wooff, Simon Kittow, Paul Surridge, Sam Harris, Adam Gingell, Chris Griffiths. Replacements: Henry Weekes (for Wooff 70), Jeremy Turner, Greg Lock (for Surridge 73), John Snell, Greg Richards, Nick Stanley (for Busch 75), Lee Powell (for Laskey 70). Scorers: Try: Laskey. Penalty: Toms.

Tyldesley: Chris Grobler; Gary Corbett, John Fisher, Mark Dickinson, Gareth Paine; Ashley Worsfold (captain), Lee Cunliffe; James O'Connor, Travis Twizell, Andy O'Neill, Matthew Crampton, Craig Pulman, Chris Bibby, Jonny Bishop, Ben Sutton. Replacements: Andy McEntee (for O'Neill 50), Damien Twizell (for O'Connor 58), Shaun Pulman (for Sutton 60), Tom Cartwright (for Bibby 66), Peter Hayes (for Crampton 75), Nick Reddrop (for Corbett, 69), Paul Martin (for Grobler 77).

Scorers: Try: Worsfold.

Conversion: Worsfold. Yellow card: Fisher 47.

Referee: Chris Seeley (RFU).

Click on the Related Links photos below to see a gallery of pictures from the match.