Sinners win in Duchy League opener

Report by David Clark

On a fine afternoon in Newquay it took a few minutes to sort out interpretations of the regulations appertaining to this new league, but the game soon got underway.

Newquay had more players than Sinners so a loan player joined Sinners for the game.

For the first ten minutes Newquay put Sinners under a lot of pressure driving them back into their own half. St Austell broke out but the Newquay defence was resolute and Sinners were kept out of the scoring area. We lost Simon Mills early in the game with a suspected broken wrist and by virtue of the regulations Newquay dropped a player to balance the sides.

At this stage the game was scrappy, with Sinners giving away a few penalties. One resulted in a Newquay lineout on our 5 metre line which fortunately resulted in a knock on by Newquay, and Tate Richardson cleared with a huge kick downfield. The chase resulted in Steve Smith brought down close to the Newquay line. Tate completed a fantastic pick up and Will Boddington went over for a try.
We gave a good chase from the restart and Smithy was brought down just before the line. Newquay kicked to clear but could not find touch and our borrowed Newquay player had a fine run down the wing, before we lost the ball in a maul. They attacked through their backs. However a scrum was awarded for a knock on by them and as the ball came out Tate Richardson did a switch pass with Sam Kendall who stormed through for another try.

With 1 converted tries we were now 12 points ahead. However, we lost Big H when Hector Carey suffered an injury to his thumb, and Newquay were quick to capitalise with two well worked tries, tying the game at that point to 12 all.

However the tide was about to change in our favour and at the restart Newquay knocked on. We won the scrum and put the ball out through the hands, for Jamie Holloway to score.

At the next restart Dazzling Darren Thompson grabbed a loose ball on the floor which was quickly recycled and Sam Kendall once again crossed the line for a well worked try.

We went in at half time leading 25-12 in what had been a good first half for both sides.

Newquay kicked to start the second half and Tate caught it and put in a long kick ahead and the chase was on. Newquay picked up the ball on their line and knocked it forward, only for Darren Pellow to pick it up and dot it down. 30- 12.

Newquay however were not out the game and their determination resulted in a further try giving them 17 points. Then things started to open up for Sinners as Tate Richardson took advantage of good positioning and put a very impressive drop goal between the uprights.

Newquay were unable to make further scoring progress whilst Sinners went on to score 4 more storming tries through Sam Kendall and Alex Burke to enable Sinners to end the game with a result of 53 – 17.

The game was well managed throughout by young Ben Trembath from the CRRS, who is surely someone we will see a lot of in the future as his career and experience progresses. Our thanks to him and coaches and players at Newquay Hornets for a great afternoon of rugby.