Exmouth Rugby presented their Colts Awards for 2019-20 last weekend.

Exmouth Rugby presented their Colts Awards for 2019-20 last weekend.

The event should originally have been held at the Exmouth RFC annual Dinner and Awards Presentation Evening – a grand occasion traditionally held at the Cockles’ Imperial Ground home.

However, with last season being brought to a grinding halt by the Coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown that place restrictions on gatherings, no formal awards ceremony was possible.

Now that the guidelines have been relaxed, the club was able to honour its stars of the colt’s campaign.

The Cockles Colts had a strong season with several players, including the three award winners, making their senior debut towards the close of the season.

The Colts had arranged a season end tour to Belgium as their finale. Sadly, that too fell victim of the Coronavirus pandemic and had to be cancelled.

Dee Travers, along with the lads did their own fund raising to make the trip happen. They even got new tour shirts ready to wear at game time.

In terms of the awards; The Colt of the Year was named as Ben Tew while Tom Pengilley was presented with the wards of Players’ Player and also top try scorer.

Dee Travers was named Colts’ Clubwoman of the Year for her work on co-ordinating the tour and her all-round support of the squad and the Most Improved player award went to Harry Legge.

Ian Harris, Exmouth RFC chairman, speaking after the presentation of the awards said: “We are extremely proud of our Colts, this year especially.

“Massive thanks go to head coach Andy Churchill with Grant Vaughan-Atkins and Josh Pitman working to develop the young squad.”

He continued: “The Cockles have a very successful tradition of developing their lads to play senior rugby and to progress as they leave the club for university, services or other opportunities.

“We recently saw half a dozen previous colts lads re-join us for senior training, all back from work or university.

“It’s fantastic to see them back.’

New Colts players are always made very welcome at Exmouth RFC.

To find out more about the coming season in terms of new players, call Exmouth RFC Colts head coach Andy Churchill on 07388 874324.