London Welsh
Cornish Pirates v London Welsh - Preview
By Mark W-J
January 26 2012
The top six sides in the Championship are all assured of their place in the promotion play-offs, and this weekend’s fixtures will go a long way to determining the seedings in the latter stages. On Sunday afternoon leaders Bristol entertain fifth-placed Rotherham; Bedford in third travel to sixth-placed Leeds; while fourth entertain third at the Mennaye where London Welsh meet the Cornish Pirates.
Welsh are one of only two clubs in the division who boast an unbeaten record in 2012 - the other is Doncaster, who have only played once since New Year’s Day as a result of their postponed fixture at Nottingham a fortnight ago. Pirates, however, are second only to Bristol on current form, with four wins and two defeats - at Leeds (14-13) and Bedford (32-13) - from their last six fixtures. They’ve picked-up 34 of their 57 points at home, with seven wins, six try-bonus points and a solitary defeat, 24-34 again against Bedford, but on our last away trip we ended one of only two remaining (at that time) unbeaten home records with our victory at Rotherham. We’ve picked up more points on the road (30) than any other club, with six wins and three defeats - at Bedford (again!), Bristol and Nottingham - and only the Blues have scored more try-bonus points away from home.
Our two clubs have been battling it out in the top four with Bedford and Bristol all season, but somehow we haven’t managed to pull away from the chasing pack. With 57 points apiece we’re currently just one point behind the Blues who themselves trail the leaders by seven points. Welsh and Bedford have eleven wins each, as do Leeds, but attacking bonus points separate the sides. Leeds have scored four tries on just two occasions; Welsh have six try-bonus points compared to nine for Pirates and ten for the Blues. Chris Stirling - who will be taking a year’s sabbatical at the end of this season from his role as High Performance Director - has seen his side win only three times on their travels with a further three draws, including at ODP three months ago. They haven’t won away at any of the top eight clubs in the table, with just one road trip - to Rotherham next weekend - to come, which gives an indication of just how good their home form must be.
One thing that the Pirates always have in their locker is a metronomic goalkicker, and this year Rob Cook is continuing the rich vein of form which saw him finish second only to Andy Goode in last year’s points-scoring charts. His 219 points from 19 appearances leave him 23 behind Rotherham’s Gary Law, his 781 points from 73 league and play-off appearances giving him an average of nearly 11 points per game since joining from Nuneaton three years ago. In the same period Gordon Ross has scored 353 points in 59 appearances for Welsh, although he played second fiddle as a goalkicker to Aled Thomas in his first year at the club, averaging just a point per game in that 2009-10 season. But our hosts will be missing two of their three top try-scorers on Sunday, with centre Drew Locke ruled out for eight to twelve weeks after breaking his collarbone at home to Nottingham three weeks ago, and Kiwi flanker Blair Cowan taking up an 18 month contract with Worcester. However, winger David Doherty, who joined from Jersey in the summer after spells with Sale, Wasps and Leeds and loan appearances for Henley and London Welsh, is currently second in the overall try-scoring charts with 13 from 17 appearances.
With the Premiership taking a back-seat before and during the Six Nations and the Championship building up to the play-offs and knockout phases we will be seeing more of the elite officials over the coming weeks and months. Our referee on Sunday is JP Doyle, who has taken charge of more Premiership matches (eleven) than any other official this season. He has shown five yellow cards - all of them to players representing the home team - and was the man in the middle when the Pirates lost 30-33 in a televised match at home to Worcester a year ago this weekend. The cameras must love him, as he was also the referee for our Friday night game at Bristol earlier in the season, while our first encounter with him was five years ago when the Pirates visited ODP, Welsh winning 16-10 with our visitors grabbing a losing bonus point courtesy of a last-minute James Moore penalty.
While Welsh had a week off following our farcical exit from the B&I Cup, the Pirates continued their attempts to regain the trophy which they won in its inaugural season with a comfortable 33-3 home win over Championship rivals Nottingham in the quarter-finals. The semi-final draw takes place next Monday, with Leinster, Munster and the mighty Cross Keys making up the quartet; the Pirates have already beaten both Munster and Cross Keys in the group stages, the Irish province going down 10-6 at home despite fielding a strong XV including Peter Stringer, Mick O’Driscoll and Simon Zebo, who grabbed a hat-trick at Franklins Gardens in the Heineken Cup last weekend and was subsequently called-up to the Ireland ‘A’ squad (the Wolfhounds) for the forthcoming internationals.
Our last visit to Penzance was for the play-off semi-final on 1st May, a game which we lost 18-10 in horrendous conditions despite leading 10-3 with barely 15 minutes to play. The final score was from a product of the London Welsh minis & juniors, Rhodri McAtee, and an indication of how strong their squad is this season is the fact that the Pirates have been able to send McAtee out on-loan to Redruth, where he scored five tries in two appearances. With only four rounds of matches left to play both clubs know that they can ill afford to drop points this weekend. Most observers believe that Bristol will ultimately finish top of the league table, but the team finishing fourth will join them in play-off Pool A; there is also a suggestion that this might provide an easier route to the final by avoiding the top seeds in the last four. Not that Bedford or Pirates (or Leeds, Nottingham or Rotherham, for that matter) would be much of a pushover, of course, and most of the key players can’t get promoted even if we do negotiate the various on-field challenges that the next four months will provide due to the insurmountable off-field obstacles. Yet it’s widely acknowledged that this is the most exciting season we’ve had at level two in the hierarchy for many years and Sunday’s fixtures will ensure that the various permutations are changing almost by the minute - it won’t be an afternoon for the faint-hearted.
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Stumbleupon26/01/2012 09:25
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The weather forecast is for showers, but not too bad - so it should be a cracking game.
Hope everyone who makes the trip has a good weekend in beautiful Kernow.
Still writing your previews on parchment using a quill pen?
London Welsh: 15. Alex Davies, 14. Liam Gibson, 13. Hudson Tonga’uiha*, 12. James Lewis, 11. Joe Ajuwa, 10. Gordon Ross ©*, 9. Rob Lewis, 1. Billy Moss, 2. Saul Nelson, 3. Shawn Pittman*, 4. Matt Corker, 5. Martin Purdy, 6. Ben Russell, 7. Michael Hills, 8. Ed Jackson.
Replacements: 16. Vili Ma’asi*, 17. Tom French, 18. Adam Brown, 19. Gary Johnson, 20. Jack Moates, 21. Will Hurrell, 22. Edd Thrower.
* Denotes full international
Unavailable for selection: Seb Jewell, Simon Whatling, Ben Stevenson, Dan George, Greg Bateman, James Tideswell, Jon Mills, Mike Denbee, Nathan Morris and Ed Siggery.
I wonder if he will get a run out before he joins the U20's?
Excellent news for Jack but with Stevenson still injured it leaves us desperately short at #9. A foray into the transfer market today to beat the deadline? I'd heard we were showing interest in the Barking scrum half a few weeks ago.
Marland and Kieran Low starting for Irish against Scarlets tomorrow; Guy and Max on the bench.
Hope the boys have a good time down in Kernow.
Quote:dottigirl
Mike Powell's Wasps lost to Exe. Not sure if he got on but there's a Powell on the scoresheet.
Hope the boys have a good time down in Kernow.
"The consolation try finally came in the final minute of normal time, when Mike Powell raced nearly half the length of the field for a superb score, which Will Robinson converted. There was still time for another powerful run by Joe Burton, before the final whistle went."
Ashley Smith also came on at half time and showed a few nice touches.
Quote:nld
"The consolation try finally came in the final minute of normal time, when Mike Powell raced nearly half the length of the field for a superb score, which Will Robinson converted."
Here from 30:15. Nice try!
[www.itv.com]
Poor performance yesterday and the pack were so outplayed that the backs didn't have a chance. Pirates seemed to know our tactics better than we did. Scrum half passes the ball out, second pass to middle of field for crash ball where the Pirates players were waiting time and time again and stopping the move dead.
Never really looked like scoring a try and it was especially frustrating to see two Pirates' tries where they drove straight through our forwards.
Any suggestions as to what our playing style is this season? I haven't a clue.
"Ugly to say the least, weather, ref, handling, organisation, agression, all terrible."
You are not, understandably, a happy bunny - but it's harsh to include the ref in that assessment. Mr Doyle had a very good game and was the best we've seen this season.
For what it's worth, I think you're being a bit hard on your team. They were outgunned up front, and in those conditions handling was very difficult. The Pirates put in one of their best performances of the season, especially defensively - but you boys never dropped their heads and kept trying until the end.
I certainly didn't put our loss down to him.
But I'm glad I accepted the invitation to watch it in comfort with a few fellow ODP regulars; I suspect Pirates are much more used to playing in those conditions than we are, and that may well have made much of the difference.
Interesting that the first two tries we conceded were almost mirror images of the ones we scored two weeks earlier against Bristol.
Apart from when we took Leeds apart and the first 65mins at Bristol that is the best I've seen us play all season.
EDF Trophy Winners 2007
B & I Cup Winners 2010
What position did his mum play ??? 
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