IVYBRIDGE RFC hit rock bottom in South West One following a 68-19 pasting by table-topping Brixham.

The Bridge were one off the bottom of the table going into the latest round of fixtures, but have been overhauled by Chew Valley, who came from behind to beat Exmouth 29-26 with a try 12 minutes into stoppage time.

Having knocked Barnstaple off the top of the table seven days earlier with a 43-40 win over them at Cross-in-Hand, spirits were high in the Ivybridge camp ahead of the Brixham trip.

Brixham went a try up in the first few minutes, were 38-12 ahead by half time and added four more tries after the interval.

J P Simonetti completed a hat-trick for Brixham. There were two tries for ex-Albion speedster Matt Crosscombe and former Ivybridge pair Scott Puleston and Mitch Pinkus.

It did not help the Ivybridge cause that they lost backs Charlie Teague and Adam Lilley to injuries in the first 10 minutes.

Even with two players in the sin bin during the second half, Brixham carried too much firepower for Ivybridge.

Having played their way out of relegation danger in the previous two seasons, Ivybridge won’t be running up the white flag just yet.

Neil Thomson, the rugby manager at Ivybridge, said: “We want to stay up and will keep fighting until the end and can't do anything about it.

“We did not expect anything from the two top teams – Barnstaple and Brixham – and picked up five points against one of them!

“Now we look at the other five matches starting with Chew Valley and go all out to get as many points as possible from them and go from there.

“We are a team with a young, local squad that will continue to compete and give all until the end.”

Mike Jensen and Adam Clarke were Ivybridge’s first half try scorers. Harry Lakeman added a second half try.

A bright spot for Ivybridge was the Vandals 2nd XV routing Plymstock 81-0.

The Vandals ran in 13 tries and overcame the sending off of the returning Marcus Prout on 43 minutes.

Seb Musgrave, Aaron Joynt, Toby Hosking, Matt Gilbury, Jack Mitchell, Conor Measor (2), Harry West, Sam Wilmington, Ryan Cox and Josh Measor (2) were all among the tries. Luke Martell kicked eight conversions.

“The atmosphere with the players is not all gloom and doom,” said Thompson.

Ivybridge have no game at 1st XV level this Saturday.