Redruth made a good start to their New Year league campaign with a home win against Westcombe Park. They led from the 21st minute although two tries in injury time made the final scoreline look a little flattering.

Four unanswered tries, one in each corner of the ground meant Redruth were good value for their eighth win of the season but at the cost of injuries to Lewis Vinnecombe (knee) and Jonathan Wright (shoulder).

Westcombe Park, who are based on the outskirts of Oprington, are celebrating their centenary season. They came well supported looking for the first win in ten visits to the Duchy (Reds, Launceston and Pirates) that their director of coaching Fraser Thomson covets.

"I thought Westcombe were one of the better sides we have played this season, they scrummaged well, but our line out gave us an advantage through John Navin and Neil Corin," summed up Redruth's coach Nigel Hambly after the match.

"I was chewing my nails a bit with 10 minutes to go with the score at 16-9. We lost our discipline for a while and started to concede penalties after not conceding many in the first hour," he added.

"We played a lot of the game in their territory and overall I was pleased with our performance against a decent side."

Looking ahead Hambly added: "We've got all the top sides except Barking to come here and we visit all the sides at the bottom, we will be looking to pick up wins to improve our position.

Despite heavy drizzle falling before the match a good crowd saw Redruth take the game to Westcombe from the kick off.

The Recreation Ground faithful had to be patient for 21 minutes before Redruth put points on the board, Ian Hambly touching down in the right hand corner. Westcombe hit back immediately with a 30 metre penalty from Simon Jervis, their top scorer.

Just before the interval Redruth started to open up a gap when Hambly, who has had a good season at full back, timed his run well to dive over in Hell-Fire corner for his ninth try of the season after 35 minutes before Scott Martin put over a 25 metre penalty to give the reds a 13-3 lead at the break.

The damp conditions caused both teams to make mistakes as Martin and Jervis exchanged penalty goals early in the second half.

In the Reds pack Nathan Pryor gave his all for an hour before giving way to Nathan Pascoe with Corin moving up to the second row.

Fly half Gert de Kock was the match winner for Westcombe when the sides met in Kent last month, but this time he was tightly marked and the visitors started to attack through their forwards after replacement scrum half Michael Hooke came on.

There were anxious moments for Reds supporters as Jervis missed a crucial kick at goal after 64 minutes, but Mark Garfoot narrowed the gap to seven points with a penalty ten minutes from time.

With left-footed long distance clearance kicks to the grandstand touchline, Martin relieved pressure three times as Westcombe pressed.

Bonds did a lot of good work and hooker James Geraty had a good game along with Paul Thirlby who was strong throughout in midfield.

The Reds' reward came with injury time tries from Martin and Bonds, Martin converting his own with a handsome kick from the touchline to take his season's tally to 109.