FLASHES of brilliance were mixed in with silly mistakes for Falmouth as they fell to a 32-14 defeat at home to Crediton.

At times, the Eagles looked good with the ball in hand and genuinely had moments were they seemed capable of winning.

But errors in their tackling game and decision making let them down and against a side like Crediton who sit second in the Tribute Cornwall/Devon League, it will only ever lead to one winner.

Falmouth put in a high tempo start, dominating play for the first ten minutes in terms of possession and territory, but they could not find the final bit of quality to open the scoring.

Crediton then took the lead after 17 minutes against the run of play when from a scrum on the right hand side of the pitch, the ball was moved out left for Chris Simpson to sprint home in the corner.

Mark Lee hit a superb conversion from the touch line and a few minutes later was given a simple penalty to kick home from 22m out.

Too much easy possession was gifted to the visitors by the hosts' missing tackles, as they went in on the top half of the body rather than around the waist.

They did get back into the game though in the 33rd minute as the Eagles worked the ball into the midfield from a line-out just inside their territory to fly-half Justyn Irons, who split the defence and zoomed in, adding the conversion himself.

In the final few moments of the half, Crediton extended their lead after gaining 25m or more from a driving maul before getting the offload to Jordan Pring to dart in, with the missed conversion making it 15-7 at the break.

Lee added another penalty early into the second half and in the 51st minute a topsy-turvey try was bagged by Crediton when Simpson was stripped of the ball, only for home centre Spiller to suffer the same fate which allowed away scrum-half Mike Pearce to run home untouched for a converted score.

It did not take long for a response to come in from Falmouth as from a scrum inside their own half, Irons fed Rob McIntyre, who proceeded to break tackles for fun on a 60m run for the best try of the day.

Knowing getting the next try would truly shove momentum in their direction, Falmouth surged forward and had control of the game with the score at 25-14.

But they missed two crucial chances to get another score, the first when Irons' aimed a penalty towards the touch line deep in the Crediton 22, only to see it miss the target.

Then the forwards edged close to the line with the away side trying everything they could to keep them out, but just as the Eagles got within inches of the line, referee James Milliner spotted they had held onto the ball and gave a penalty against them.

This helped allow Crediton to ride out the storm and in injury time, hooker Bobby Mogford, below, went over under the posts to finish the match off.

Falmouth Packet:

FALMOUTH: 15 J Symons, 14 Carne, 13 Spiller, 12 Stuthridge, 11 McIntyre, 10 Irons (c), 9 Tyson; 1 Searle, 2 Church, 3 Geach, 4 Dobson, 5 Instance, 6 David, 7 Fitzpatrick, 8 Bailey.

REPS: Williams, Gilbert, Burt.