Plymouth Albion ended pre-season with a solid performance against the Cornish Pirates, who came out 31-7 winners at the Brickfields on Saturday.
Pirates took the lead early when Rhys Williams reached over the line after some patient build-up for the visitors, but that lead was cancelled out shortly after when Pita Ratukadru broke through.
Williams grabbed his second with just over 20 minutes gone from a driving mall. As half-time approached, Kyle Speare took a whack to the leg and was forced to come off at the break.
A few minutes into the second half, Alex Everett took advantage of a mistake to run clear and score, before Jack Oulton took a knock to the head and was himself forced off.
Pirates grabbed another with nearly 70 minutes gone when some neat work out to the left played in Dan John to open out their advantage further.
The Penzance-based side added another right before full-time though Morgan Nelson after more solid work, and the successful conversion brought an end to proceedings.
The score line was once again not an entirely fair reflection on the game; Ryan Lamb’s men competed exceptionally well and held an outstanding defensive line for much of the afternoon.
We took several more learning points from a solid day of rugby, and the squad has a lot of positives to take into the opening league game of the season against Rosslyn Park.
Line-ups:
Albion:
Dan Pullinger, Gabe Mead, Jenson Boughton, Dan Collier, Brad Howe, Angus Hodges, Jack Wickham, Sam Daly, Jack Oulton, Tom Putt, Kyle Speare, Archie Hill, Pita Ratukadru, Shea Cornish, Craig Duncan
Replacements: Tom Cowan-Dickie, Ramaz Rukhadze, Callum Davies, Torin Clarke, Morgan Stone, Phil Jones, Sonny Hirini, Seta Raumakita, Billy Orchard, Charlie Groves
Pirates:
Lefty Zigiriadis, Rhys Williams, Fin Richardson, Alex Everett, Will Britton, Harry Dugmore, Will Gibson, John Stevens, Alex Schwarz, Iwan Jenkins, Dan John, Tom Pittman, Matt McNab, Frankie Nowell, Kyle Moyle
