ON the positive side of things Falmouth will be delighted to have won their final away match of the 2014/15 season at Old Plymothians and Mannamedian on Saturday.

However, on reflection they will look at their bonus point 38-21 victory against their already relegated hosts and wonder how they did not score more points after storming to a 26-0 half time lead in the Tribute Cornwall/Devon clash.

Sometimes it becomes easy to get carried away when you shoot ahead of your opponents by such a margin and everyone wants a piece of the glory and a try to their name.

This is perhaps what grabbed hold of the Eagles’ psyche in the second half as too many perfect opportunities to spread the play into wide gaps for easy scores were dashed away by slightly greedy or thoughtless moves.

To be fair to the home team, who fielded several rather older players including their chairman Mark Turner, put up a good fight after the interval which surprised not only themselves, but also their visitors.

It did not take long for the Eagle to open their account for the day as right winger Nick Carne and Rob McIntyre combined with a classic draw and pass move which opened up space for the former to dot down.

Minutes later flanker Ollie Williams showed he has the pace to beat defender as he passed four of them en-route to the try-line with his determined run, with Justyn Irons converting.

Simple movement of the ball through the hands set up two more tries before half time as Carne got his second before full-back Tom Edmonds touched down.

Irons’ conversions made it 26-0 at the break and everything pointing to an easy win for the Eagles with a cricket score worth betting on.

But it would prove not to be the case as Falmouth seemed to lose the plot and their focus in the second half as they over complicated things for themselves.

Alongside this, an improvement was made by OPM who looked about 80 per cent better than their performance before the interval.

From a catch-and-drive move, the hosts edged towards the whitewash before fly-half Gavin Rea spotted a gap, slipped by a couple of lame tackles and dotted down by the posts.

More pleasure soon followed for OPM when a series of discrepancies from the Eagles in their own 22 saw a penalty try awarded.

Although the visitors will feel some of the refereeing decisions were a little off, they kept making their own errors which were allowing the home team back into proceedings.

They needed to beat off the white line fever which had gripped them in the half in order to put some more distance on the scoreboard and relief was felt when Simon Bailey dotted down after a driving maul.

Mike Eaves kept the game alive as the home centre dashed over the line to make it 31-21, but Carne clinically killed any comeback off when he completed his well deserved hat-trick.

This result combined with Bude’s heavy loss at Saltash and Paignton’s win over Exeter Saracens means Falmouth are guaranteed to finish sixth in the table.

On Saturday they play their final game of the season against Paignton at the Recreation Ground with kick-off at 3pm.

FALMOUTH: 15 Edmonds, 14 Carne, 13 McIntyre, 12 Stuthridge, 11 Collett, 10 Irons (c), 9 Spiller; 1 Searle, 2 Geach, 3 Bishop, 4 Dobson, 5 Baglow, 6 David, 7 Williams, 8 Bailey.

REPS: Instance, Church, Hooper.

TRIES: Carne (3), Williams, Edmonds, Bailey.

CONS: Irons 4/6.