Richmond keep the faith but Pirates take the points

RICHMOND and Cornish fought out an entertaining end of season game which could have gone either way. With the London Scots’ victory over Nottingham on Friday night, relegation had been settled but both sides wanted to finish in style and threw the ball around in the sunshine.

Richmond head coach Rob Powell said: “I think today shows the ethos of the club and team. We’ve never lost faith in each other. When you’re struggling for form, people often go off in their own directions. This has not happened this year. We’ve worked really hard as a group and could have won today.”

Another late change at fly-half did not help Richmond’s preparations and they started slowly. By contrast Pirates started strongly, using a scrum penalty to set up an attack which ended with a lovely cross kick to winger Will Trewin.

Richmond held on under early pressure and were put in prime position by James Lennon, setting up Joe Vajner to touch down at the back of a maul. The outstanding AJ Cant then put Pirates back in the lead with two tries in four minutes but Lennon cut the lead to seven points when he feinted and nipped over by the posts.

Once again Pirates built back their lead, first with a short range try from Morgan Nelson and then with a conservative penalty in front of the posts. However, the Richmond substitutes made immediate impact, Mark Bright at the start of a move which gave Rahul Patel 9 Penalties conceded 10 12 Lineouts won 17 1 Lineouts lost 1 5 Scrums won 4 0 Scrums lost 2 0 Sin bin 0

O’Meara 8, Makele 7 (Walsh 66, 7), Case 8, Duncan 7, Patel 7, Burrage 7, Lennon 8 (Stafford 51, 9); Maguire 7 (Cave 51, 7), Vajner 8 (Post 63, 7), Mpiko 8 (Lichfield 7), R Anstey 7 (Marshall-Telfer 68, 7), Cavubati 7 (Nugent 65, 7), Massey (c) 9, Brooke 8, Monson 7 (Bright 51, 8)

Cant 9, Wedlake 7 (Penny 51, 8), Tucker 7 (Smith 40, 7), Elderkin 7, Trewin 8, Bazalgette 9 (Schwarz (55, 8), Kessell 8; Andrew 7 (Morris 51, 7), Nelson7 (Norey 55, 7), Johnson7 (King 40, 7), Barker 8, Britton 8 (Fender 40, 7), Teague 7 (Gibson 55, 7), Stevens (c) 8, Grubb 8 a run in to the corner and then the alert Jack Stafford charging down a clearance to score in the corner.

Winger Trewin picked a lovely line for his second try as the Cornish backs again excelled. Still Richmond hung on and had their best period in the final quarter. With five minutes left Alex Post completed the scoring. Both sides had late chances, a cross kick to Jack Walsh just too hard and a scoring pass to Trewin just forward.

Pirates coach Alan Pavor said: “It was exciting. Both teams tried to play. The last game of the season is always strange but both teams gave their best.”

Pirates face Jersey on Friday in the cup semi-final and Paver added: “We will regroup and at the Mennaye, it’s going to be a tremendous game.”