Cornish Pirates 8, Ealing Trailfinders 28

This was naturally a disappointing Greene King IPA Championship defeat for the Cornish Pirates, whereas for second-placed Ealing Trailfinders their victory enables them to maintain pressure on top of the table London Irish, writes Phil Westren.

Making light of a later than scheduled kick-off, their team bus having broken down en route to the Mennaye Field, the Trailfinders outscored the Pirates by four tries to one, with the searing pace of scrum-half Jordan Burns bagging him a brace.

Of interest he went one better when playing for Bedford Blues in a 29-34 defeat against the Cornish Pirates last April, when on that occasion he registered a hat-trick for the losing side

Leading the Pirates out for this match were No. 8 Tom Duncan and prop Marlen Walker, the game proudly marking their 100 games milestones for the club.

However, the home side was missing the services of influential prop Christian Judge, news on Friday confirming that the Cornish-bred tight-head had been signed by Saracens for the rest of the season.

After a ‘Minutes Applause’ held to honour the memory of former Plymouth Albion, Mounts Bay and Navy player Kyle Mason, match underway it was the visitors who were quick to apply pressure at the Newlyn gate corner.

The Pirates initially held the threat and cleared the danger, but when awarded a scrum penalty in the 11th minute the choice for the Trailfinders was obvious.

Okay, the attempt for a quick score from a catch-and drive didn’t immediately deliver, but when the ball was worked left it was powerful wing James Cordy-Redden who crossed for the game’s opening try. Full-back Peter Lydon added the extras.

The Pirates looked to respond, using the width of the field to bring their potent back three of full-back Kyle Moyle and wings Alex O’Meara and AJ Cant into play, before each side lost a player injured – milestone-man Walker replaced by Jack Andrew and for the visitors David Johnston taking the place of centre Pat Howard.

Continuing to probe, the Pirates acquired their first points approaching the half-hour mark, wingman Cant cleverly gathering scrum-half Alex Day’s subtle nudge ahead to dive in at the scoreboard corner. Fly-half Harvey Skinner, who was making his first Championship start, missed the conversion, but was on target soon after with a penalty strike that gave the Pirates a one-point lead.

Good work at the breakdown from centre Rory Parata provided further encouragement for the Pirates as they set up another attack, but right on half-time it was a converted try from Ealing’s skipper Rayn Smid that gave his side a 14-8 lead going into the break.

As for the second half, it was one dominated by the Trailfinders, with their ‘Star Man’ Burns scoring his two tries – the second securing a bonus point - and Lydon once again slotting his conversions.

Ahead of the game, Cornish Pirates’ co-coach Gavin Cattle said that his team would need to be at the top of their game to get the result. On the day, however, they weren’t, a view he honestly and commendably expressed post-match.

He said: “We have no excuses and sometimes you have to put your hands up and say well done to the opposition. The score just before half-time when we held the lead hurt us but having said that the boys were still pretty buoyed during the interval.

“On reflection we didn’t perhaps use wind advantage in the first half, and with their collision better than ours in the second period holes opened up that their scrum-half was able to exploit, so fair play to him.

“From our perspective, we created scoring chances and AJ’s try was very well-worked. Ultimately, however, our game was just not near good enough on the day. Our line-out was up and down and it seemed that every time we got a positive, like a turnover or a penalty, we couldn’t back it up with another positive which would have helped us get a foothold in the game.”

Cornish Pirates: 15 Kyle Moyle, 14 Alex O’Meara, 13 Rory Parata, 12 Callum Patterson (Javier Rojas Alvarez 59), 11 AJ Cant, 10 Harvey Skinner, 9 Alex Day (Alex Schwarz 46); 1 Marlen Walker (Jack Andrew 21), 2 Sam Matavesi (Dan Frost 56), 3 Tyler Gendall (Tom Concu 70), 4 Danny Cutmore (James McRae 62), 5 Brett Beukeboom (c), 6 Josh Caulfield, 7 Matt Bolwell, 8 Tom Duncan (Dan Lee 56).

Ealing Trailfinders: 15 Peter Lydon, 14 Will Harries, 13 Pat Howard (David Johnston 23), 12 Harry Sloan, 11 James Cordy-Redden, 10 Laurence May, 9 Jordan Burns (Ryan Foley 73); 1 Alex Lundberg (Jack O’Connell 62), 2 Alun Walker (Matt Cornish 56), 3 Mark Tampin (Elliott Millar-Mills 56), 4 Ben Landry (Carl Kirwan 65), 5 Harry Casson, 6 Kieran Murphy, 7 Jordy Reid (Rohan O’Regan 38), 8 Rayn Smid (c).

Scorers:

Cornish Pirates – try: Cant; pen: Skinner.

Ealing Trailfinders – tries: Burns (2), Cordy-Redden, Smid; cons: Lydon (4).

Referee: Michael Hudson (RFU)

St. Austell Brewery’s ‘Cornish Pirates’ Man-of-the-Match: Matt Bolwell

Attendance: 1629

The two teams will meet again next weekend in the semi-final of the Championship Cup. Kick-off at the Trailfinders Sports Ground on Sunday is at 3pm.