| Pirates Celebrate With 'Festival Rugby' | |||||||||
| Cornish Pirates 55 Pertemps Bees 14 IT was always going to be a happy homecoming for the Cornish Pirates, but clearly the newly-crowned National Trophy winners were keen to put on a show.
At Camborne's Recreation Ground yesterday, Jim McKay's side served up a Sunday treat for their army of supporters, crushing visiting Pertemps Bees 55-14 with a superb nine try-blast. Still riding high on the emotion of that famous victory over Exeter Chiefs the week previous, the Pirates dominated proceedings from start to finish. Sure the Bees battled valiantly in the opening stages, but once the Pirates asserted their authority up front, soon the points began to flow. The opening score arrived on 17 minutes when a scrum five metres from the visiting line was edged to within touching distance; No.8 Tim Cowley flipped the ball up to Gavin Cattle, who in turn fed full-back Adryan Winnan to power over for the try, which was converted by Leeds-bound fly-half Alberto Di Bernardo.
Further chances went begging for the Pirates, who despite losing centre Duncan Bell to the sin-bin for use of the boot, were able to add a second try just before the interval. Again with a scrum five metres out, the Cornishmen applied the shove. After several aborted attempts which had been halted by the Bees, referee Nick Williams finally lost patience with the visitors' disruption attempts and awarded a penalty try, which was again converted by Di Bernardo.
Worse was to follow for the visitors as first they lost replacement Dan Tuohy to the sin-bin for a late tackle on Di Bernardo, then skipper Mark Gabey followed him to the sidelines for punching lock James Inglis. Emerging for the second half with a 14-0 deficit and just 13 men, it was always going to be an uphill struggle for the Bees. Just six minutes after the restart it was the Pirates who were again adding to their tally. A Bees scrum on halfway was shunted backwards at pace, the ball emerged on the Pirates side, allowing Cattle and Cowley to combine well to send James Moore over in the corner. The former Coventry back then repeated the feat just two minutes later, this time running in from halfway after he captitalised on some poor handling from the Bees in midfield to make it 24-0. The Pirates were now in full flow and only a push just yards from the line by visiting winger Kyle Palm prevented Jon Hylton from adding a fifth try.
The resulting penalty merely gave the home side another attacking platform from which to build. Electing for a scrum, the home shove was again applied and when the scrum buckled for the third time, Williams once again had little option but to go in under the posts for a second converted penalty try. To their credit, the Bees refused to lie down and their efforts were rewarded just before the hour mark when some slick inter-passing resulted in winger Reece Spee finding his way over by the posts, Jon Higgins converting. The score seemed to ignite the Pirates, who in the space of a few minutes added two more tries, the first a flowing move backs move which saw Winnan over; the second an easier effort for Duncan Bell, who was able to latch onto Di Bernardo's well-placed grubber kick to the corner. Still the Bees kept coming and from a quick tap penalty five minutes from time, flanker Akapusi Qera darted over for a second try, this time converted by scrum-half Rod Petty. The last word, however, was left to the home side and winger Moore, who nabbed his hat-trick score on 77 minutes; then lock Joe Beardshaw claimed his maiden try of the season in injury time when he dived over following Chris Cracknell's break. Di Bernardo added the extras to the latter's score to cap what was yet another good day's work for the Pirates. "It was a very good win for us," said McKay afterwards. "For us the main challenge this week was to switch our attention onto these last two league games following the euphoria of last week. We had to give the boys a bit of a rev up during the week, but they have really responded well and to get that win today was vitally important, especially as we had lost our last three league games.
"Scoring 50 points is always very pleasing. They have some good players and they were hard to break down. I felt they ran out of petrol a bit near the end, but we kept going and we reaped our rewards, which is the main thing. "It was the last home game for a few of the boys, plus it's going to be a while before we're back here again, so it was important that we signed off here with a good performance and a good win."
Cornish Pirates 55
Tries - Winnan (2), Penalty Tries (2), Moore (3), Bell, Beardshaw Conversions - Di Bernardo (5)
Pertemps Bees 14
Tries - Spee, Qera Conversions - Higgins, Petty
Pirates:
Yellow Card: Bell
Bees:
Yellow Cards: Tuohy, Gabey
Referee: N Williams (RFU)
Attendance: 2,873
|
