Cornish Pirates 23 Exeter 32
Sunday September 14th 2008

By YOG (Mark Curtis)

Pirates verses the Chiefs matches are always highly charged, both on the pitch and off of the pitch, and today was no exception.

Although overcast, the weather for the match was dry, and had been for the 24 hours leading up to the match, ensuring that the game would be played with pace and width, something both teams favour, but it is a style of play that can induce errors and see a team slightly off form fall behind very quickly …. as was to prove the case today.

Even without the boost of their off season spending spree, it would be obvious to most fans that Exeter would be the biggest challenge the Pirates had faced since playing Northampton last season. Today would be a far better indicator of where the Pirates stood than either the match against Coventry last week, or against Newbury the week before.

Any Pirates supporter who had witnessed last week's match against Coventry would have gone into this week's clash with a healthy dose of trepidation (despite what they might have been saying publically), which might have seemed justified if you were just to look at the score in the end of the first half.

Indeed the single 3 point score the Pirates got during the closing minutes of the first half to make it 3-19, actually seemed to lift the dread in repeating the previous week's nil'ing at the hands of Coventry. Although Exeter had the last say in the first half to bring the score up to 3-22, many Pirates supporters saw it as a positive sign that at least the Pirates might not be seriously embarrassed. But even the most diehard Pirates supporters could not foresee how the second half would unfold.

And the reason for the possible optimism ? Like so many matches, the score often does little to reflect what happened on the pitch. Most unbiased observers would probably say that Exeter were the better side in the first half, but probably not by much.

Unlike the previous week, the Pirate team as a whole did not play in an unthinking manner, the scrum was contested ferociously with little advantage to either side, and in fact the Pirates probably had the better lineout throughout the whole game.

The difference in the two sides were that Exeter were a bit more streetwise around the breakdown and had some blistering pace on the wings, whereas the Pirates again suffered from inconsistent kicking, playing people out of position (i.e. front row forwards being asked to carry and defend the ball out on the wing), and failing to back each other up on the break.

Again in the second half the score does little to reflect the whole story. Despite the Pirates racking up an impressive run of scores in short order, it does not mean that Exeter suddenly collapsed or took their eye off the ball, instead it reflects that very small margin of luck/skill/passion that can decide between very evenly matched teams.

In this case the thing that swung the game in the Pirates favour was an increase in passion, determination and belief, and the more they scored, the more belief they seemed to have in themselves. The increased belief the players had in themselves was equally matched by the Pirates supporters.

Continued with pictures >>>>>

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