Pride and passion: Cornish Pirates could win Championship and not go up. Photo by ACTION IMAGES from the Daily Telegraph.
Page last updated 18th May 2012
London Scottish centre Ryan Westren has recovered from a groin injury to line up for Cornwall in the final pool match in this season’s Bill Beaumont Cup Southern Section against North Midlands at Camborne on Saturday, kick-off 3 p.m.
Westren’s selection sees Steve Johns (Plymouth Albion) revert back to the wing in place of Rhodri McAtee (Cornish Pirates), who is unavailable.
Jake Murphy (Cornish All Blacks), ever present in the squad this campaign, comes in at fly-half for unavailable club-mate Lewis Webb.
The other change to the starting XV is at scrum-half, where Dave Pascoe (Royal Navy) starts with Greg Goodfellow (Redruth) reverting to the bench.
The replacements bench is made up of players from the Redruth club, with centre Sam Parsons being added as backs cover.
Cornwall coach Dave “Benji” Thomas was pleased with the attitude and commitment of the squad. He said. “Training went really well tonight, but it’s been really good all the way through. This has been an exceptional bunch of players who have really bought in to what we want to achieve”.
Benji confirmed that, despite not training due the knock he received on Saturday, full back Brett Rule should be fit after treatment.
Cornwall (Cornish All Blacks unless stated): B Rule (Redruth), R Bright, R Westren (London Scottish), L Paterson, S Johns (Plymouth Albion), J Murphy, D Pascoe (Penryn & Royal Navy); D Jacques (Redruth), J Salter, C Williams (Redruth), B Hilton (Capt), B Jenkins (Cambridge), M Rawlings, T Rawlings, S Hocking (Plymouth Albion)
Replacements: R Brown (Redruth), P Joyce (Redruth), C Fuca (Redruth), T Duncan (Redruth), G Goodfellow (Redruth), S Parsons (Redruth), T Notman (Redruth)
By Brendan Gallagher. Article from the Daily Telegraph, 16th May 2012.
Citizens of Kernow, rugby fans of Cornwall, it's time for Trelawny's Army to march again and lay siege to the Cornwall County Offices in Truro until the councillors therein come to their senses and agree to support calls for a 10,000 capacity county stadium, where the Pirates and Cornish rugby can start planning for the future.
Pride and passion: Cornish Pirates could win Championship and not go up. Photo by ACTION IMAGES from the Daily Telegraph.
It is already a long standing historic disgrace that Cornwall has not got such a facility, and if the Council miss the opportunity of voting through stadium plans you might as well pull the drawbridge up over the Tamar right now and become a rugby backwater for evermore.
The County Council voted 56-45 against the idea last night and the only hope now would be an about turn when the "cabinet" of the Council meet to either confirm or overthrow that decison.
I would suggest it's high time some old-fashioned, non-too-subtle lobbying takes places and, failing that, Trelawny's Army should man the barricades and march on the Council to make their views known.
Yes, times are hard, but times have always been hard in Cornwall, at least since the bottom dropped out of the tin market. But perversely that's the whole bloody point. Build a cracking little stadium, support the Cornish Pirates in their quest for Premiership rugby, and very good things indeed could happen.
I'm not suggesting that the Pirates themselves will ever make a fortune out of Premiership rugby, should they ever earn promotion, and how galling is it to think this year that they could win the Championship and be denied that right to step into the top flight? Unless you are Leicester, there is not a huge amount of money to be made out of professional rugby per se.
IF Cornwall progress to the Final, the Army will be running 2 coaches to Twickenham. One trip will include an overnight (Saturday night) stay at the Holiday Inn, Heathrow. The cost is £110 per person, based on two people sharing a double room, and includes a match ticket and full English breakfast. There is a £15 supplement for a single room.
The second trip is a same day return coach trip and costs £80 per person, including a match ticket.
To book either of these trips, contact the Army's Transport officer, Bryan Llewellyn, on 01209 619646 or 07895 089890 as soon as possible.
Darren Jaques on the charge. Photo by Simon Bryant.
Cornwall head coach Dave ‘Benji’ Thomas was pretty pleased with the performance as the Duchy got their season off to a fine start with victory over old rivals Devon at Launceston.
It was the first time Cornwall had lifted the Tamar Cup since 2008, with four good tries, and 16 points from the boot of man-of-the-match Brett Rule, clinching the spoils.
It all bodes well for their County Championship opener against Gloucestershire at Redruth on Saturday week.
“We learnt a lot,” said Thomas. “We have never been better prepared than we are at the present time because of the training sessions we have had.
“We had a strong side out against Devon, and in the first half I thought we played really, really well, but in the second half perhaps we didn’t do all of the things we did in the first half, but there was still a lot of encouraging play from both forwards and backs.”
The Duchy had a far stronger team on paper, with Devon not selecting any Exmouth or Brixham players prior to Saturday’s county cup final, and that extra strength was evident in the fifth minute, when Ben Hilton celebrated his appointment as Cornwall captain by finishing off a catch-and-drive line-out, and Redruth full-back Rule slotted the simple conversion.
Six minutes later, Cornish All Blacks flanker Mike Rawlings broke down the right touchline before feeding clubmate Richard Bright to cross in the corner.
Two Rule penalties in quick succession put Cornwall 18 points up in almost as many minutes, before Newton Abbot fly-half Rob Avery-Wright broke Devon’s duck in the 22nd minute with a penalty.
That was quickly followed by a try from full-back Will Topps, who gathered a loose ball and raced 40 metres to score to make it 18-8.
Rule added a third penalty after Devon’s replacement lock Sam Harris had been sin-binned for hands in a ruck, and the catch-and-drive line-out then did the trick for Cornwall again, with this time All Blacks flanker Tom Rawlings finishing off a powerful maul.
Rule converted superbly from the touchline to give the hosts a 28-8 interval lead.
Devon rang the changes at the break, and they came out for the second half in determined mood, but they were kept out by some stern home defending.
Rule slotted his fourth penalty to take Cornwall over the 30-point mark, but the frequent changes on both sides made it a pretty disjointed second period.
Rule then missed a relatively long-range penalty effort, but Devon continued to infringe, and referee Carl Bennett yellow-carded Plymouth Albion flanker James Harris.
Cornwall made the most of their extra man when replacement winger Tom Notman rounded off a sweeping move in the right-hand corner.
Devon finished brightly though and managed a late consolation try through Avery-Wright, who returned to the pitch after being replaced at half-time to intercept a pass from Jake Murphy, and added the conversion.
Sam Parsons looks to offload. Photo by Simon Bryant.
Ben Hilton in the lineout. Photo by Simon Bryant.
Cornwall (Cornish All Blacks unless stated): Rule (Redruth), Bright, Paterson, Murphy, Struminski, Webb, S Hawkey (Wadebridge Camels), Jacques (Redruth), Salter, C Williams (Redruth), Hilton (capt), J Goldsworthy (Camborne), M Rawlings, T Rawlings, Duncan (Redruth).
Replacements: Fuca (Redruth) for M Rawlings 22 mins, Parsons (Redruth) for Hawkey 47, Joyce (Redruth) for Williams 47, Mann (Penryn) for Duncan 47, T Notman (Redruth) for Bright 54, Hurdwell for Salter 57, Shepherd (St Austell) for Webb 66
Devon: Topps (Barnstaple), Mulberry (UWIC), Lee (Plymouth Albion), Webber (Barnstaple), Busch (Cullompton), Avery-Wright (Newton Abbot), Setter (UWIC), Radford (Newton Abbot), Roberts (Barnstaple), Weekes (Cullompton), Tripcony (Cornish All Blacks), Chapman (Newton Abbot), James (Barnstaple), Mortimer (Newton Abbot), Richardson (Sidmouth)
Replacements: S Harris (Cullompton) for Chapman 32, Manton (Plymouth Alb) for Weekes ht, Channon