Cornish Pirates 23 Leeds Carnegie 25

Saturday November 16th 2008

By YOG (Mark Curtis)

It's been said that the Pirates raise their game when faced with tough opposition, and it's also been said that some of the best Pirates performances in recent years have been games we have ended up losing. On Sunday both statements were true …. except it very nearly wasn't a loss.

Having other duties to perform around the ground on match days, I'm usually a couple minutes late getting to my seat. I was therefore a little disappointed when walking towards the grandstand to hear Phil Westren's dulcet tones announce that the conversion was kicked by "Alberto Di Benardo, but that was nothing compared to my shock at reaching the grandstand only to discover the score was actually 0-12. Surely this couldn't be right, I was only a couple minutes late ?

On balance I probably had a better experience because of missing those first couple of minutes, as the action I saw for the remaining game was fast, accurate, well planned and passionate.

The first couple minutes aside, I would say honours during the rest of the game were fairly even. Both the scrum and the lineout were about the same for both sides, although Leeds conceded a lot of penalties in the scrum initially before realising that the Referee (Nick Williams) was policing it effectively, after which point they conceded fewer.

In open play the Pirates seemed to have the better of it, with just a couple of handling errors aside, the basics from the Pirates were very well done and assured. I think we are at last beginning to see the fruits of Brett Davis labour beginning to take bloom, as there were several set pieces of passing play, involving dummy runners, missed player passes and sudden changes in direction, that looked well rehearsed and in the main were executed flawlessly.

Whilst Leeds certainly weren't any mugs when it came to the passing and running game, it was possibly the tactical kicking of none other than Alberto Di Benardo that had the greatest impact for them. Which was a bit of a reversal for the "Doctor", because when he was with us his place kicking was superb, but his tactical kicking was a little suspect. Sunday however Alberto seemed to had forgotten the vagaries of the Camborne wind when it came to place kicking, but his tactical kicking was very good, putting the Pirates under pressure several times.

As for the Pirates kicking, it was a bitter sweet afternoon for us. The sweetness came from Rhys Jones, who actually gave Di Benardo a master class in placed kicking. At the beginning of the season, when we did not have a first choice kicker and Rhys and Doug Sanft were constantly swapped, there were some who said that Rhys should be the one favoured as he was young enough to have the best chance of improving with experience, well it looks as though Rhys has proved those people right.

Over the last few games, with obvious backing from the coaching staff, Rhys has grown in confidence and has really improved, culminating in an excellent display in kicking this Sunday that nicely compliments his good standard of play when running with ball in hand.

The only bitterness came in seeing Rhys having to be helped from the field, and later seeing him leave the ground on crutches. If he is out of action for any length of time, I think we will miss him badly, not something many people could imagine saying after his first few games at the start of the season. Hurry back please.

Without doubt, the best aspect of the game was the attitude and spirit from the Pirates players. As said, I can't comment on the first couple of minutes, but for the rest of the game the Pirates looked to take the game to Leeds at every opportunity.

I don't think there was a player in the line up that could have been accused of just going through the motions. Tackles were hard but fair, kicks ahead were chased, yards were made in the tackle, and the ball was competed for at every opportunity.

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