East Budleigh returned with three points and plenty of bruises following their encounter with a physical Axmouth United team they defeated 4-1 last Saturday, writes Mark Auton.

The Jays, who remain top of Macron League Division Three as a result of this latest victory, dominated from the start, but were struggling to put away their chances, whilst the hosts just seemed to want to try and kick Budleigh off the park!

The ‘not to be bullied’ Jacob Rice opened the scoring after the interval and it was two when the busy Rice saw his shot saved only for Hugo Demetre to tap in the rebound.

Goals three and four came courtesy of Dan Atkinson; He did not know much about his first as the ball smacked him on the nose on its way into the net!

However, his second capped a great team move from which Liam Mabin claimed an assist with a peach of a cross for Atkinson to head home.

The referee, who was generous in his approach to some wild tackling and wrestling from the home side, finally lost patience with the antics and issued a red card to reduce Axmouth to 10 players for the last 10 minutes of the contest.

The home side did net a late goal, punishing a sloppy back pass.

For Budleigh, Demetre played well in the midfield matching the hosts blow for blow, Rice and George Harris were lively, but the Man of the Match award went to Liam Matthew whose distribution was inch perfect all game.