Cornish Pirates 39 Doncaster Knights 32
RFU Championship Round 2
Mennaye Field Penzance
Sunday 11th September
Woll's Match Report
What is it that old sporting cliché spouts about ‘games’ and ‘two halves’? Well we certainly had one here, as Katia awaited clearance to enter Cornish waters in the Approaches; and Pirates forwards coach, Ian Davies, was left wondering if his pre match Granny Smith, may have been of South African origin after all.
His post-match observation that the Pirates’ second half performance was nothing short of “rubbish”, may have been tinged with the understandable emotion associated with being put through the mill for the second week running; but it pretty much summed up what was for all said and done a cracking game of rugby. Certainly if you were down from South Yorkshire; in the second half at least. Or a neutral.
At the death; and with the Knights pressing hard on the Pirates line once more, it was the former Redruth man, PJ Gidlow; who’d begun his side’s revival in the opening seconds of the half, who gathered the ball one handed with the line at his mercy.
Ex Pirate, Tom Luke, must have been planning his fourth score from the tee, to break Cornish hearts and condemn the hosts to a second consecutive draw. De ja vu of the woes at Mose loomed ominously as the home faithful took a collective deep breath.
The collective sigh as the ball leapt out of the centre’s hand was audible but the woods hadn’t been navigated out of just yet. The resulting scrum buckled sans Ward, who’d taken a yellow for the team five minutes sooner, but the ball found its way to Thomas who helped it on its way towards Newlyn to spare any blushes.
And blushes there would have been, as a first half performance seemingly eons earlier, had displayed a growing in confidence and a healthy 36-11 margin, to savour oranges from.
Five tries; the pick of which was Thomas’s try account opener on the stroke of half time, which ended a flowing end to end move from the Cornishmen, appeared to signal a green light for a landslide fifteen minutes later.
This gem was supplemented by a brace from Locke who himself ‘self-denied’ the chance of a personal hat trick; preferring to selflessly hand the ball to Doherty D to sprint the remaining 25m instead.
The impressive Nimmo, whose work at set piece and the loose continued to stand out, capped off the try scoring in the Old Western National Corner, as the second row steam rollered in from close range.
Cookies right hoof accounted for the eleven points from the tee. While a solitary Whitehead penalty and a try from Burke-Flynn who had been bundled over in the Scoreboard Corner gave any respectability to the visitor’s contribution to the match thus far.
After the break, the changes to the Knights personnel at 9 and 10 made an immediate impact as Gidlow gave hope as he charged down Cook’s clearance inside the Pirate 22, and recovered the quickest do dot down under the posts.
A quarter of an hour later, and it was McIlwaine’s turn to give the home support the jitters as he broke through a couple of tackles to score just to right of the posts. Luke again did the honours in front of his former employers although Cook’s penalty on the hour seemed to be the platform to steady the ship.
It wasn’t, and without much to suggest more home points were in the pipeline, the Pirates continued to take backward steps in the face of the visitor’s onslaught.
Off trudged Ward not long after his introduction which handed the initiative to Brett Davey’s charges, who gratefully received.
Up stepped Bradford to take the plaudits as, not for the first time, a Doncaster catch and drive found second wind to gift the back row with the bonus point honour. And maybe more as Luke again found his range from wide right.
A Cook penalty with two minutes remaining would have doubled the Pirates’ second half ‘haul’ and secured victory for sure. However, as it rebounded off the left upright, the feeling that this was not to be a Pirates day looked ever more likely.
Until that was PJ discovered the meaning of ‘hero to zero’, in its cruellest guise.
Cornish Pirates
15 R. Cook 14 R. McAtee 13 G. Pointer 12 D. Locke (21 T. Cooper 57mins) 11 D. Doherty
10 C. Thomas 9 J. Doherty (capt) (20 G. Cattle 62mins) 8 B. Cowan 7 P. Burgess 6 D. Ewers (19 C. Walker-Blair 65mins)
5 I. Nimmo 4 L. McGlone (18 M. Myerscough 57mins) 3 A. Paver 2 R. Elloway (17 D. Ward 65mins) 1 R. Storer (16 L. Fairbrother 60mins)
Replacements: un-used 22 W. Davies
Tries: Locke 2, Nimmo, Doherty D, Thomas
Cons: Cook 4
Pens: Cook 2
Yellow: Ward
Doncaster Knights
15 D. McIlwaine 14 D. Flockhart 13 T. Luke 12 P.J. Gidlow 11 M. Keating
10 M. Whitehead (22 O. Goss half time) 9 L. Audis (21 C. Hallam half time) 8 M. Noone (19 D. Parsons 39mins) 7 D. Bradford 6 A. Boyde
5 G. Kenworthy 4 M. Challinor (capt) 3 R. Burke-Flynn (17 Alex Brown 55mins) 2 S. Boden (18 J. Yeandle 53mins)S 1 S. Corsar (16 Andy Brown 62mins)
Replacements: un-used 20 Z. Farivarz
Tries: Burke-Flynn, Gidlow, McIlwaine, Bradford
Cons: Luke 3
Pens: Whitehead 2
Match Officials
Referee: Darren Gamage (RFU)
Assistants: Paul Knowles & Nigel Higginson
Man of the Match: Alan Paver
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