The bubble burst in dramatic fashion at Roehampton on Saturday when a powerful and determined Cornish team proved too strong for Trinity and nailed the victory with the last play of the game. 

The cliché ‘ding-dong battle’ is apt here as these two sides served up a most entertaining afternoon’s rugby.  Cornish started strongly and Trinity’s task of defending was not helped when Archie McMillan was injured in the first minute and could play no further part. Max Mouna came on, and the visitors had to continue defending. This they did well with two good hits from Marc McEvilly and another from Olly Hubbard. Now it was Trinity’s turn to attack and Adam Sheehy’s kick ahead gave an opportunity for a break.  A high tackle meant a yellow card for Cornish and Trinity had a strong position in the corner from the penalty.  But they lost their line out. They remained focused, however, and another penalty gave Sheehy the chance to take a quick tap and good hands through the line created space for Ty Williams to hare down the wing and cross round for the opening try which was converted by Ben Telfer. Ben Vaillant put in a good tackle, but Cornish’s 14 men were showing plenty of grit. A powerful maul was allowed to increase its momentum with Trinity players standing out and they drove over for an unconverted try after 16 minutes.

Trinity replied with a promising move but failed to keep the ball moving along the line as they had done for their first try and Cornish came again.  Despite good tackles by Sheehy and Vaillant the hosts found a hole in the Trinity defence and scored under the posts.  12-7 after 22 minutes. David Williams tackled well but the home side increased their lead to 19-7 after 30 minutes with another try through the middle. Trinity now got more into things and a good penalty by Telfer to the corner produced a chance, but again the line out was not well managed.  Eventually a really powerful carry from Ty Williams, when he used speed and strength to force his way through tackles, set up a good position from which the ball was whipped left and a chip ahead by Quinn Singh was well followed by Vaillant who got the touchdown.  Telfer’s conversion narrowed the gap to 19-14. Cornish registered a penalty goal on 38 minutes, but Trinity were alert at the kick-off and forced a penalty.  Vaillant took this quickly and the ball was moved right for Tom Wilcox to cross in the corner.  Telford made a good effort at a difficult conversion, but the match was nicely poised at 22-19 at the interval.

Mids were quickly on the attack after the break.  Vaillant took a fine catch in the line out and the ball came to Harry Wilson, who had replaced a busy and industrious Rhys Gormley at scrum half.  Harry, who had been out of action for a long period is well known for his change of direction and deceptive running. He produced this now to outwit the defence and unload to Vaillant who had followed up impressively to score and give the visitors the lead. The conversion was missed. Cornish came again and Telfer fielded a high kick, sidestepped his man, made ground and kicked ahead but was harshly penalised for a high tackle when he nailed the catcher in a really promising piece of play. This gave Cornish the opportunity to push down the field. Trinity defended well but were offside and Cornish kicked to the corner and produced copybook line and maul to regain the lead at 27-24 with half an hour left. The see-saw continued when a solid Mids scrum saw Wilson feed Luke Joubert, and he danced his way to the line to score a lovely try which Telfer converted. 31-27. Cornish now really came in droves and Trinity had to dig deep, Singh made a big tackle and twice the rock-solid home line out failed, and it seemed that Trinity would survive the onslaught when Tom Wilcox won a huge turnover.

However, the clearing penalty failed to find touch and Mids were punished as Cornish moved the ball well and found a gap to score and lead 34-31. The next twist saw McEvilly burst through from a line out and weave his way over for another Mids’ 7 pointer and 38-34 with time running out.  Now it was a question of closing out the game which proved exceedingly difficult as the powerful Cornish outfit threw everything into attack. Trinity were doing very well until a huge clearing kick resulted in a 50-22 for Cornish and for the last five minutes they were camped in the Mids’22. Mids defended stoutly but at the cost of conceding a succession of penalties and the strength of the home team prevailed.

Skipper of the day for Mids Quinn Singh’s comment – “They were big!” summed it up.

MATCH REPORT BY GERRY MURPGY
MATCH PHOTOS BY NEIL PEPPER via Trinity RFC Facebook page