Exiles show their fighting spirit but fall just short
DESPITE losing by the narrowest of margins, London Scottish’s performance against Pirates was by far their strongest this season.
They looked like a team re-born, incomparable to the side that conceded a century against Ealing.
Scottish DoR Matt Williams said: “I’m super proud of the boys with the character they showed in their response from last week. It’s a tough loss, we could, and should have won that.”
After an opening 20 minutes of jostling for dominance, Scottish No.9 Stephen Kerins caught the Pirates off guard with a tap penalty, and played Nick Selway into space. The hooker offloaded to fly-half Dan Nutton who ran in unopposed – but his conversion hit the post.
Cornish Pirates responded just after 30 minutes through rapid winger Callum Shirker. A lineout move brought the ball in-field, and Shirker exploded onto a pass, and through the defensive line to score. Arwel Robson converted.
Scottish flanker Morgan Dawes was sin binned for illegally halting a Cornish maul and Pirates capitalised on the numbers advantage. Hooker Tom Channon grounded the ball following a powerful driving maul for a 12-5 half-time lead.
Flanker Brian Tuilagi scored to put Scottish into the lead just before the hour mark. A rolling maul broke down, and Kerins’ quick pass found Tuilagi at first receiver, who powered over to score. Nutton slotted the conversion to draw level at 12-12 after 57 minutes.
Scottish winger Noah Ferdinand put the Exiles ahead after 63 minutes. Nutton made a break and linked up with Leo Fielding who played the winger into space. Ferdinand’s rapid burst took him to the corner.
Nutton could not convert and mmediately after the re-start, the Pirates struck back as Sirker crossed for his second. The Pirates chased down their kickoff, and capitalised on a heavy overlap, with Sirker diving over and Robson slotted the decisive conversion.
Pirates coach Gavin Cattle said: “We weren’t at our best but we’ve got to give credit to London Scottish. I thought that they fought tremendously hard – some would argue they should have won that, or had an opportunity to win it at least.”