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Plymouth Admirals made the long trip north to take on in form Redditch Arrows but came away with a 35 – 7 defeat.
The Admirals opened the game with their offense going to the air but were forced to punt. A high punt forced the
punter to scramble back and then to run to try and get the first down. The Arrows defense however held firm and left their offense in great field position on the 35 yard. Things got worse for
Plymouth on the Arrows first offensive play when Arrows Quarterback Richard Wilde hit wide receiver Phil Grove for a 35 yard touchdown pass and the early 7-0 lead.
Plymouth put this set back behind them and put together a great drive completing several important passes. They
were rewarded when they too hit the end zone on a 18 yard completion to tie the game up at 7-7.
Both teams then exchanged possessions without making any serious threat to each other. The Arrows however took
the advantage when a Martin Hill Fumble recovery left the Arrows on the Admirals 29 yard line. The Arrows made some progress towards the goal line but came up short just as it looked like
they would score. Facing a 4th and 11 on the Admirals 13 yard line, Richard Wilde completed his second passing score of the day with a 13 yard pass to Steve Bell for a 14-7 lead.
The Admirals were struggling to move the ball on the ground on the floor against a strong Arrows defense,
however this was more than made up with a good passing game which was keeping then in the game.
Andy Mortimer then intercepted a Plymouth pass and returned it 32 yards and on the Arrows next possession the
Arrows went to the ground and Ian Lakin had 2 consecutive runs of 11 yards each before breaking away on the next play for a 24 yard touchdown and to put the Arrows firmly in control at 21-7
at the half.
The third quarter remained scoreless but the Arrows finally put pay to any hopes that there visitors had by
scoring 2 further touchdowns. String running from Dave Mills , Mark Collett and Ian Lakin allowed the Arrows to march up the field and take control. Ian Lakin scored his second touchdown of
the day on a 4 yard run.
The Arrows completed the scoring late on when Ian Looms made the second interception of the day and returned it
57 yards. Richard Wilde the Arrows QB took full advantage of this to hit Dave Faulkner from 16 yards for his third touchdown pass of the day. The Arrows then scored a 2 point PAT when
following a bad snap Wilde found Toby Rhode s in the end zone for the final 2 points.
On offense the Arrows ran for 214 yards and 123 yards passing, whilst defense stopped the Admirals running
game for no gain and 126 yards passing.
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