Cornish Pirates

Cornish Pirates 22 Bedford Blues 18

RFU Championship Stage 2 Play-Off
Sunday 4th April 2010

Yog's Match Report

Love it or hate it, there is no doubting that the new Championship structure and it’s play-off rounds has certainly generated some very hard fought and tight games, especially at this stage of the season, where traditionally most of the teams in the league are playing for the best of the runners-up title.

This season however, every team has something to play for, and the intensity has to be there for every minute of every game, because every match is important.

This atmosphere was evident right from the start, with the tension evident in the home crowd by the way they shouted and clapped their team onto the pitch.

Everyone knew this game would be tough, and everyone knew this game would be close ... and everyone was right.

Right from the start the Pirates showed their ambition and willingness to push forward at every opportunity when Gavin Cattle put a kick through the Bedford defence to take play within 5.0m of the Bedford line.

The early pressure seemed to put Bedford on the back foot, as in the scramble to clear their lines Bedford knocked on, where Gavin insisted on keeping up the pressure by taking the quick tap kick and proceeded to weave his way to the try line for the first score of the day.

A successful conversion by Rob Cook saw the Pirates 7-0 up with less than four minutes on the clock.

It was shortly after this that former Pirate and crowd favourite, Dan Seal, decided to get acquainted with his former front row team mates as only front row forwards can. The resulting penalty was successfully kicked by Rob Cook to see the Pirates extend their lead with still only six and a half minutes on the clock.

Bedford finally seemed to shake off their travel tiredness and demonstrate why they have been one of the form teams of the league so far. It was Bedford’s forwards that began to put on the pressure, in both scrum and maul. It is to the Pirates credit that they quickly realised where Bedford were strongest and adapted their play to counter this as much as possible.

It was however the Bedford pressure that finally exposed a chink in the Pirates armour, when a penalty against the Pirates for an infringement at the breakdown was moved 10m closer to the posts for an after the whistle incident. The penalty kick was good, making the score 10-3 after 18 minutes.

The next period of play was very give and take, with Bedford continuing to try and put pressure on through their always dangerous pack, and the Pirates mixing their always excellent defence with some exceptional runs through the likes of Gavin Cattle, Wes Davis and Rob Cook.

At the breakdown there is an exceedingly fine line between competing aggressively and fairly for the ball, and overstepping the mark. On the 34th minute referee Rowan Kitt decided that Dave Ward for the Pirates had in his opinion overstepped the mark too often in the game, and sent him to cool his heals for the next ten minutes.

The resulting penalty saw Bedford claw the score back to 10-6. Games of rugby can turn on very small incidents, one of which happened on the 1st minute of extra time, where a Bedford mighty kick forward was made exceedingly dangerous by a Pirate back slipping, which gave Bedford a straight run in for their first try of the game. Although the conversion was missed, it meant that Bedford went in at half time leading 10-11.

The Pirates needed to start strong at the start of the second half in order to blunt the momentum that Bedford had built at the very end of the first half. Unfortunately it was another simple mistake that would prove costly.

Forgetting that they had just taken the ball back into their own 22, the Pirates put the ball out on the full, which brought the resulting lineout back to deep in the Pirates half. The ever dangerous Bedford pack took full advantage of this and forced a strong rolling maul over the line for a try. The resultant successful conversion extended Bedford’s lead to 10-18 with barely three minutes played in the second half.

As the match went on, both teams began to look a little scrappy and nervous. There was an increase in passes dropped, penalties conceded, and for Johnny Bentley it was his inability to find touch that had often plagued him throughout the season, that made him and his teammates work under pressure at times. It was however the Pirates that shook off this nervousness first, with a series of well worked passes that took them from the Bedford 10m line to the try line, with Rob Cook converting his own try on the 62nd minute of the game.

Although Bedford tried to come back quickly, it was noticeable that the Pirates had received a much need injection of confidence from Rob’s try, allowing them again to move the ball well and to take them right back to the Bedford try line.

A very quick succession of penalty, scrum, penalty was finally finished of by the old poacher himself Gavin Cattle, and despite the conversion hitting the post, the Pirates were once more back in the lead 22-18 with six minutes of game time left.

The final six minutes were extremely nervous for players and fans alike. The entire game could be won or lost on the next score. Knowing this Bedford went all out for the win, with them camped within the Pirates 5m line for much of the last couple of minutes.

However with Bedford rejecting the chance to kick for victory on more than one occasion, it was the mammoth Pirates defence that held the score steady at 22-18 for a very hard fought Pirate win.

The result makes it very interesting at the top of Pool A, with Bristol, Pirates and Bedford all winning two of their first three games, with each getting a losing bonus point in the game they didn’t win, and just being separated by a very narrow points difference.

Who said end of season matches were boring ?.

Scorers

Cornish Pirates

Tries: Cattle 2, Cook
Penalties: Cook
Conversions: Cook 2

Bedford

Tries: Fielden, Tupai
Penalties: Pritchard 2
Conversions: Pritchard

Cornish Pirates :
Cook, Davies, Devlin, Ireland, Jackson, Bentley, Cattle, Rimmer (Storer 76), Ward (Elloway 59), Paver (Franklin 34), McGlore (Myerscough 53), Gulliver, Morgan (Holmes 59), Betty, Cowan.

Not used: McAtee, Winn.

Bedford:
Pritchard, Fielden (Davey 73), Dorrian, Vass, Taylor, Davies, Chudley (Walshe 76), Walsh, Richmond, Seal (Cecere 73), Howard, Rae (Harlock 80+9), Gillanders, Harding, Tupai (Lewitt 70).

Not used: Locke, Roberts.

Referee: Rowan Kitt (RFU)

Assistants: Michael Tutty & James Minards

Man of the match: Gavin Cattle

Attendance: 3,358

Match Day Sponsor Kernow Model Rail Centre