Saturday, November 17

Tribute Cornwall and Devon League

Pirates Amateurs 6

Bude 34

BUDE remain unbeaten in the league since September after a 34-6 victory at Pirates Amateurs on Saturday.

The North Cornwall side made the long trip to Penzance with just 17 players but in the end it didn’t matter as a brace apiece from Joe Wilson and Angus Hodges coupled with tries from Jason Bolt and Rory Hodges meant the bus journey home was a happy one.

Without a game last week due to the Tribute Cornwall Cup, Bude were forced to name a slightly different side which had earned an excellent victory over promotion-chasing Penryn at Bencoolen Meadow 14 days earlier due to a combination of work, holidays and injuries.

There were five changes in total. Steve Yates and Jack Horwell came in for Ed Hilliam-Cooke and Kyle Speare in the backs while Adam Black, Joel Troke and Tremaine Fry were replaced by Steven Bromwich, Matt Williams and man-of-the-match Finley Fry in the pack.

Pirates, who are now coached by former Camborne full-back Murray Westren, are struggling towards the bottom of the table but started well and missed two penalties before fly-half Steve Evans slotted them ahead inside 15 minutes.

Bude failed to apply their normal style to the contest and were fortunate not to be behind by more.

However they did go 5-3 up five minutes later from a penalty that was kicked to the left-hand corner.

A driving maul was set up from the lineout allowing Bolt to crash over. Olly Denford missed the first of four consecutive conversion attempts.

The rest of the first-half failed to see any further points from either side with the visitors holding a narrow advantage.

That was soon eradicated five minutes after the break as Evans slotted over a penalty.

But just like in the opening 40, Bude responded quickly and it all stemmed from Denford.

Running from full-back, the skipper made an excellent break down the left-hand side and found himself two-on-one with the last defender before passing to the supporting Wilson who ran in from 20 metres.

Bude showed why they’re hard on the heels of leaders Plymstock Albion Oaks as they grabbed their third try on 55 minutes.

With the ‘Ams’ defending narrowly, the ball was worked out wide to Rory Hodges via an overlap to run in unopposed from 30 metres.

Bude were now in the ascendency but failed to grab their bonus point try until well past the hour.

A 10-metre scrum saw the visitors push the Pirates back allowing number eight Wilson to pick up the ball and fall over the line.

With ten minutes to go, Bude knew that a fifth try would confirm victory and it came from their player/coach on 73 minutes.

After a good run was stopped, scrum-half Olly Mounce passed to Williams who showed admirable skill to offload the ball to Angus Hodges 15 metres out. As the winger and full-back came across, Hodges used his power to to score as he was tackled over the line. Denford grabbed his first conversion and they led 27-6.

Hodges made it try number 15 for the season with seconds to go. After a turnover, Wilson came away with the ball and passed to Hodges on the wing, who stepped his man on the outside and ran in from 40 metres.

Hodges admitted he wasn’t best pleased.

He said: “I’ve got to be happy with the result, but if we played a higher team we’d have struggled or lost badly. There are lessons to be learned that we don’t have a day like that again, especially in our next away game at Plymstock (Albion Oaks) next weekend.

“Whatever feeling caused us to be off our game, we need to sort that out for future matches.”

Hodges was also left scratching around for a third replacement until Saturday morning and bemoaned their first-half performance.

He said: “We only had 17 which wasn’t great and we were trying to find another player. It’s also a long way to travel and we just weren’t switched on. The warm-up was a bit soft and we just had a bit of an off day. It was a scrappy first-half where we didn’t have any phases or continuity and they had a lot of possession and territory. We had to defend our try line a lot in the first 20 minutes and they made a lot of yards through some pretty poor tackling which was very poor.

“But what penalties they had they didn’t make the most of and then we picked it up in the second-half and played our rugby which gave us the win.”

Bude will look to make it ten wins from 11 games on Saturday when they welcome mid-table Plymouth Argaum to Bencoolen Meadow (2.30pm).

Hodges said: “They’ll put up a decent fight and they like to scrap it out but if we play our rugby and are switched on then I’m pretty confident that we’ll get back on track.

“We just want to take steps forward and make sure we put the mistakes of Saturday to bed.”

Bude —

Denford, R Hodges, Sharp, Watton, Horwell, S Yates, Mounce; Bolt, Bromwich, Allin, Kingdon, Williams, F Fry, A Hodges, Wilson

Replacements: Sobey, Comber

Tries: Bolt, Wilson 2, R Hodges, A Hodges 2

Convs: Denford 2

Pens: N/A

Bude’s man-of-the-match: Finley Fry