Saturday, February 8

Tribute Cornwall/Devon League

Bude 43

Pirates Amateurs 11

BUDE made it back-to-back victories over top four sides as a dominant second-half performance saw them thrash Pirates Amateurs 43-11 at Bencoolen Meadow.

The Penzance-based visitors were right in the game at 12-8 down at the interval, but Bude’s powerful forwards proved too hot to handle as they ran in five further tries.

Bude player/coach Angus Hodges made two changes to the starting 15 from the 24-18 victory at second-placed Paignton as Chris Allin and Callum Bettington were both unavailable with Simon Jeffery and Brad Thomas recalled.

The North Cornwall side have lost just once on their own patch this term and looked set to blow the Pirates away in the opening stages.

In just the third minute, a driving maul was held up two metres short, but number eight Joe Wilson peeled off the back and offloaded out of the tackle to scrum-half Olly Mounce to dive over the line.

Five minutes later it was 12-0 as although another maul was stopped just short, lock Joel Troke barged his way over from close range. This time Olly Denford added the extras.

Pirates, who are coached by former Camborne full-back Murray Westren, have enjoyed a superb season, to sit up in fourth, and bounced back quickly. From a scrum on the Bude 22, full-back Ben Guy broke through a two-man tackle and beat everyone for pace to just get to the line. He then added the extras before slotting a 34th minute penalty to bring them to within four.

Both sides enjoyed periods of possession without finding the killer instinct, although the visitors did break through the defence on occasion, but failed to make it count.

Hodges reminded his players that their defence needs to improve in the second-half and they did exactly that before going on to dominate the rest of the game.

Guy added a second penalty two minutes into the half to bring them to within a point, but after ten minutes of Bude gradually getting on top, Pirates buckled as prop Matt Williams went over from yet another driving maul.

Shortly after it 22-11 as Hodges received a pass from winger Rory Hodges almost on the line after he had taken a pass from Wilson.

Pirates were given a potential route back into the game on 58 minutes as Mounce was sin-binned for trodding on someone’s foot as he looked to run away from the scrum.

This allowed Pirates to build up a head of steam, but once again Bude held out.

Bude’s set-piece is the source of most of their tries and it was again on 67 minutes. The referee decided that Wilson had been held up from another driving maul, meaning the hosts were awarded a five-metre scrum, which Wilson scored from.

Wilson added his second two minutes later from another driving maul, before Pirates were reduced to 13-men for the last ten minutes due to two yellow cards.

Hodges grabbed his second with two minutes to go as Pirates tried a dink box kick ten metres from their own line, which he read, before scorching past the players on the outside to run in under the posts.

Bude played out the final couple of minutes as they moved level on points with Pirates with a game in-hand.

Hodges said: “We had quite a lot of wrongs to put right from the away game against them where we got beat pretty convincingly (30-5). But off the back of last week (Paignton away) there was more confidence going into this week.

“At half-time it was a pretty even game but in the second-half we turned it up and played some of the best rugby we have all season. It was nice to prove to ourselves it was just an off day down there and that we are worthy opponents and that we deserve to be where we are in the league.”

Hodges was delighted with their performance after the break, and wants to see it on a regular basis.

He said: “In the second-half we had a lot of energy and a lot of positive play. Everyone was really hungry to get the win. We showed the fire and passion like we did at Paignton and it’s nice to see it both home and away, so hopefully it means we’re getting back on track in terms of consistency.

Bude have another formidable task on Saturday as they head to third-placed Plymstock Albion Oaks.

The Devon side won 37-36 at runaway leaders Truro on Saturday, but Hodges is confident of just a third away win of the campaign, which could see them move to within two points of the Oaks.

When the two sides met earlier in the season, Bude were 22-6 winners.

He said: “They have a pretty good fly-half in Tom Richards who likes to fling the ball around and they crash up through the middle quite a lot. If our defence is as weak as it was in the first-half on Saturday then I think we’ll give quite a lot of territory away early on, which I think we’ll struggle to come back from. So what we need to do is get out of the blocks quickly and show the fire and passion from the first whistle. If we can do that then we should shut them down quite convincingly.”

Bude — Thomas, R Hodges, Denford (captain), Hilliam-Cooke, Butler, Watton, Mounce; Jeffery, Bolt, Williams, Kingdon, Troke, Saxton, A Hodges, Wilson.

Replacements: Sobey, F Fry, Statton.

Tries: Mounce, Troke, Williams, A Hodges 2, Wilson 2.

Convs: Denford 4.

Pens: N/A.

Bude’s man-of-the-match: Will Kingdon.

Elsewhere, Bude Seconds lost 22-7 at their Falmouth counterparts in Group Three of the Kernow League. Shaun Andrew was the Bude scorer.

The seconds host St Just in their first home game tomorrow.