By Dick Straughan
September 6 2007

It seems ridiculously early in the season for a cup final but that is exactly what this game is being billed as. The visit of the mighty Saints to the home of the aspirational Cornish Pirates is guaranteed to bring a bumper crowd to Camborne and the weather forecast for Sunday is good. The sun, after all, shines on the righteous!

Enough column inches have already been filled with the reasons why the Saints ended up in Division One to make it prudent not to dwell on the subject further here. The recent Cohen-gate saga was no doubt an unwanted distraction but if the Saints, as many expect, are to bounce back to the Premiership at the first attempt they need players committed to the cause. It appears sadly that Mr Cohen was not.

The Saints will arrive at Camborne for their first taste of life on the road in this wonderfully competitive Division having cruised past London Welsh in their season opener by 44-11. With the result only settled in the final quarter the Saints will be hoping that they are now over their opening night nerves as they look to push on and assert themselves at this level. The capture this week of speedster Tim Visser and hooker Ross Batty on loan from the Newcastle Falcons adds even more quality to an impressive squad captained by Bruce Reihana. With around 1500 supporters following the team down to West Cornwall they are clearly not taking this match lightly.

The Pirates are relative old hands at these arm wrestles with the big guns from the Premiership. As they themselves have developed they have scared Worcester in their promotion season, famously won at Bristol, and shared the honours with Leeds over three matches. The glitch came against Harlequins who over two league fixtures were simply too good. The problem for the Saints is that the Pirates have improved vastly since then.

After a tough pre-season against Leicester Tigers and Newport Gwent Dragons the Pirates cruised to a nineteen point advantage last weekend against the newly promoted Cornish All Blacks. It should have been much more such was the first half dominance of Jim McKay`s men. The script was torn up in the second half as the resurgent All Blacks asked some stern questions of the Pirates before skipper Tim Cowley sealed the match with a late try. The win however was crucial and to doubt the resolve and never-say-die attitude of the Pirates would be foolhardy. There were so many great escapes last season as the Pirates prevailed - the late Steve McQueen must have been a proud man!

So what about Sunday? Well the Saints are favourites to win but we all know that. Jim McKay is likely to have a fully fit squad to select from but I don`t expect any wholesale changes from last week. The battle for front row places will be interesting if Alan Paver and Nathan Kemp are over their injuries. The other questions revolve around whether Ali Koko should start and should Steve Winn - the man who would tackle a brick wall if called upon - figure in the Centre? I would not interfere with the current half-back pairing of Bolt and Steenson whilst Winnan was majestic at full-back last weekend. Its a welcome dilemma for the Coaching staff for sure.

I predict that the game will be a tight entertaining affair and as I`m completely biased in such matters I`m going to predict the Pirates to win by two points!

However, win, lose or draw it promises to be a fantastic rugby day at Camborne. Tickets are still on sale but are selling very fast. The match kicks off at 3pm and is being covered live by BBC Radio Cornwall (see their web link for details).

A match report will be posted on this site late on Sunday.