Roth V Pirates 2006
Steve Winn Try
By Woll
January 7 2011
This is how Woll described the game at Rotherham on the 13th December 2006 when the result was Rotherham 18 Cornish Pirates 24
Pirates get the Bester of Titans
The top of the table clash between the Earth Titans and Cornish Pirates had the makings of a titanic struggle. A benchmark for the remainder of the season? Who knows. However the Pirates finish on top of the pile with Leeds, Plymouth and Titans in hot pursuit!.
A strong and gusty end to end wind towards the clubhouse promised to make this a game of two halves, and didn't it just?! The Pirates fresh from their week at Center Parcs since their outing at Nottingham last Sunday, appeared to have drawn the short straw as they began the game with the elements in their faces. Come the final whistle and a true test of skill and character had been passed with flying colours.
Before the game though, there was a touching and respectful minute's silence to mark Rememberance Day. A poignant moment in un-necessarily troubled times abroad. If only....
The Titans kicked off this top of the table clash seemingly with everything in their favour. The elements, home advantage, media tips as favourites and all the early exchanges falling in their favour. No surprise then when it only took less than two minutes for the Titans to notch up their first points through fly half Gareth Steenson, after the Pirates conceded a penalty.
Less than ten minutes later, and Steenson had managed a wind assisted, but nonetheless magnificent 60m+ kick to double the Titans lead to 6-0. Understandably this gave the home side a confidence boost, further helped by the sin binning of Alan Paver on 18 minutes. This signalled Dan Seal's return from injury with his introduction at Evans' expense whilst Paves was in jail.
With Titan's edge in the pack pre-sin binning, they naturally kicked for the corner. The lineout was won by Rotherham and they managed to shove the Pirates over the line and score a well deserved try through centre Bernard Hennessy. Steenson wasn't so precise with the conversion so the score remained at 11-0 in favour of the home side.
Fortunately for the visitors, no more points were conceded while their prop was in the bin, but the Titans were starting to look menacing. A five point loss then when Paver returned wasn't a bad return and with half time only ten minutes or so away, it was beginning to look a job well done. The Titan's pack certainly had the upper hand but the Pirates defence held firm and provided a platform to look dangerous going forward themselves. Indeed throughout the half several opportunites were created only to be snubbed out by some equally capable Rotherham defence.
As an 11-0 scoreline seemed inevitable to mark the halfway mark, the Pirates were awarded a scrum just outside their own 22. Everyone expected the Pirates to win the ball and escape from their territory, but Roth had other ideas. An extra shove by their pack pushed the Cornishman back off the ball and allowed Steenson to eventually wriggle through. He made no mistake in converting his own try to increase the lead to 18-0 with half time beckoning to give his side an extra boost.
Even so, you sensed that this game was far from over. True, Rotherham had a three score advantage, but the Pirates had shown plenty of ambition in the first period to suggest that they too were not out of it. Bearing in mind their recent form it would have been foolish to think otherwise. Even so, the opening minutes would be crucial to the eventual outcome.
The Pirates restarted, and as is their trademark these days, applied a lot of pressure on their own kick. Aggressive work at the breakdown forced the ball to go loose, to which Cattle reacted the quickest. His toe poke ahead bounced kindly enabling him to score under the posts within a minute of the half beginning. Alberto was never going to miss the conversion and so brought the Pirates back to 18-7.
This served to simaltaneously rattle the home side and inspire the Pirates who from this point took charge. As a consequence, home discipline began to waiver with firstly Burke being shown a yellow card; and then three minutes later, an adjudged spear tackle on the much more involved McAtee, surprisingly didn't lead to a similar outcome. The resulting penalty however was slotted through the uprights clinically by Di Bernardo to bring the score to 18-10. The comeback was now well underway.
The visitors were now rampant and again surged forward upon receiving the restarting kick. The attacking waves were unstoppable and despite being denied upon crossing the line again, Steve Winn immediately found a gap from the resulting re-scrum, to exploit, and score the Pirates second try of the game. Di Bernardo kept his perfect kicking record so far to bring the Pirates to within a point. 17-18
It was hard to believe that their was still over 25 minutes to go, and a Pirates success looked increasingly likely. To highlight this Rotherham made only one more serious foray into the Pirates territory which looked dangerous until a knock-on undid their good work
By now, the Pirates had not unsurprisingly restored parity in the scrum, and even started to get the upper hand. In one instance a 5m Pirates' scrum looked like being shoved over the line, but the Titans front row popped up and the scrum was reset. This time Rotherham held firm so the Pirates spun the ball out wide and almost scored that way instead; such was their self belief at this stage. A third try was now surely inevitable but as ever in this game, nothing can be taken for granted.
Rotherham though were clearly struggling on their own scrum put-in, and soon after were turned over as the Pirates returned a favour from the first half. The scrum against the head lead to yet another promising attack, but still came to nothing as the Roth kept their line unbreached....for now.
Moving into the last quarter and both sides started to make replacements. Winnan made way for Duncan Roke, while Roth replaced second row Henry Head with McGowan. Five minutes later, and Titan's other second row, Eric Lund, took his leave in favour of Jacobs.
Then came the moment the visiting fans had waited for when Vinnicombe found space on the right after some good, all round work from both forwards and backs. The resulting try put the Pirates in front for the first time, a lead they were not to relinquish and was further increased by Di Bernardo's touchline conversion. 24-18.
There were still ten minutes left with Roth now needing a converted try to win, however unlikely this was beginning to look. The Pirates fans though have been here before on more than one occasion this season, and appeared to have another nail-biting finish to endure.
They needn't have worried, as despite the clear determination shown by the Titans, it was their own heroes who finished the game looking the more likely to score again. This assurance was probably highlighted by a 65+m clearance from hand by Di Berando [wind assisted], and an audacious drop goal attempt which was wasn't far from succeeding.
On the sideline the Cornish bench added to the encouragement from the travelling fans with a drum beat of their own, by banging on the perspex dugout to the beat of the crowd's chants of Pirates! Pirates!.
The joy at the final whistle then was demonstrative, and not undeserved. A fine win had been rewarded with the knowledge that top spot had been achieved. Eleven months ago, the Pirates had gone into as big a game relatively speaking and been soundly drubbed by the Quins, which rightly put things at the time into perspective. This season though things may well be a lot more different. Promotion for any of the divisions top six may well be denied by an ill-advised, 'old boy'-type ruling, which will stop any one of these progressive clubs from being where they deserve to be for the good of the sport.
In the meantime the Cornish Pirates sit on top of ND1 on merit, and will strive to maintain this to at least make a statement of the quality that exists outside of the Premiership, particularly in the far south west; 'annointed ones' or not.
Pirates 24
15-A Winnan [D Roke 59] 14 R McAtee 13 H Barratt 12 S Winn 11 L Vinnicombe [J Hylton 75]
10 A Di Bernardo 9 G Cattle (capt) 1 A Paver 2 V Ma'asi 3 S Heard [D Seal 70] 4 J Inglis
5 J Beardshaw 6 S McKeen 7 I Motusaga [C Cracknell 66] 8 M Evans [D Seal 20-28]
Replacements: [unused] N Makin S Betty S Hobson
Yellow Card: Paver
Tries - G Cattle, S Winn L Vinnicombe
Pens - A Di Bernardo 1 | Cons: A Di Bernardo 3
Earth Titans 18
15 Whitehead 14 Tuohy 13 Burke 12 Hennessey 11 Allen 10 Steenson [E Classens 72]
9 Bedford [J Blackwood 79] 1 Walsh 2 Hanna [N Conroy 67] 3 Hopcroft 4 Head [L McGowan 56]
5 Lund [S Jacobsz 65] 6 Fourie 7 Cochrane (capt-M McComish 43) 8 Bornman
Replacements: [unused] Croall
Yellow Card: Burke
Tries - Hennessey, Steenson
Pens - Steenson 2 | Cons: Steenson
Referee: Dale Newitt (RFU) Article Links: Pix | Pirates Win in the Hood
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Amazing to think we came out top of the league at that match
Nice, comfortable lead at half time and total domination second half please.