Houston in control to take Caldy to cleaners
ULSTERMAN Bruce Houston pulled the strings for Pirates as they got their first ever win at Caldy.
Captain John Stevens, full-back Will Trewin, tighthead Matt Johnson and replacement Tom Georgiou all crossed for tries as Pirates survived two sin-bins to make it six wins from seven and jump up to second in the table.
Pirates coach Gavin Cattle said: “In the firsthalf we were outstanding, keeping the ball for long periods and dominating play. I was impressed with how we hit the pitch running after a 375-mile journey up.
“Our aim was to turn the screw in the second half, instead a sequence of events led to two yellow cards. We dealt with it really well and John Stevens was brilliant, his experience and leadership showed in that period. It makes up for losing here in the snow last season.”
Despite treacherous conditions at Paton Field, and a heavy pitch after a night of rain and sleet, Pirates pinned Caldy back and blindside Stevens burst through two defenders on the right for the first try on seven minutes after a lineout steal.
Pirates won a scrum penalty in line with the posts and Houston fell just short with a 40-metre penalty kick. The visitors were quickly back in Ravers’ territory, and pinned in front of the home side’s try line for several phases pulling defenders narrow before a looping pass by Houston to Trewin saw the Cornishman slide over on the left.
Pirates utilised their scrum advantage, with Caldy relying on scramble defence, before the away side’s props linked up and Johnson muscled over on the half-hour mark.
Ex-England 7s star Nic Royle did back-to-back chips over two Cornish defenders before half-time, only for the ball to go dead.
Ravers re-started strongly and within two minutes Pirates went down to 13 men, scrumhalf Alex Schwarz sinbinned for a high tackle on Royle, and hooker Morgan Nelson seeing yellow for illegally stopping a driving maul, with Caldy awarded a penalty try.
But Houston extended Pirates lead with a penalty and outside centre Georgiou dodged two tackles to dash over on the right for the bonus point. Replacement Tom Pittman kicked a late Pirates penalty and Caldy replacement Joe Sproston got a consolation try in the final play.
Caldy coach Matt Cairns said: “Pirates are a much improved side, we only made a couple of errors in the first half but they capitalised. It looked like we were crawling back into it but they had too much for us.”