Hartpury suffer last minute agony in West Country derby
by Luke Jarmyn, at the College Ground
HARTPURY suffered gruelling heartbreak at the hands of the Cornish Pirates on Saturday after an impressive second-half fightback was undone in the final minutes.
Fly-half Harry Bazalgette scored eight points from the tee, including a mesmeric 52 metre penalty kick from inside Hartpury’s half to give the home-side a late lead, but it wasn’t to be.
Pirates’ loosehead Jacob Morris muscled over the try line in the final play to give the Penzance side their first win at the College Ground since 2018.
Speaking after the titanic end-to-end all-West Country tussle, Hartpury director of rugby John Barnes said: “We’re clearly disappointed, we had an up and down first half into the wind. We contained them early on, but the interception was a big turning point.
“If we’d gone in 15-8 down with the win then we knew we had a good chance, but that put us on the back foot.
“On the second-half we came out and got some ascendancy. We didn’t manage the game well enough well they went down to 13, and that shows that we need to change our game management as that was a time we could have put out foot on the gas with Pirates only having six forwards.
“We tried to play a bit, got the lead with six minutes to go, but then our game management completely lost it for us with knock-ons, bad throws at line-outs, and a defensive error from a goal line drop out, which cost us the try and game.
“It’s really disappointing when we’d work so hard to get ourselves in the lead with five minutes to go. But to then give away a penalty and a converted try was a disappointing end.”
Under a gleaming Gloucestershire sun, it took Hartpury barely four minutes to open the scoring, when talisman Harry Bazalgette set-up George Barton, and the Gloucester-loaned fullback dinked past two defenders to run in from 15-metres out.
Pirates fly-half Bruce Houston kicked over a penalty, and the visitors took the lead on the 20th minute, with debutant hooker Harry Hocking dotting down off the back of a driving maul from a short and quick line-out move.
Bazalgette levelled the game on the half-hour mark, but with Hartpury skipper Will Crane sin-binned for a head-on-head collision, it was all Pirates.
The Cornish side’s captain John Stevens slipped past two defenders on the right to finish a fantastic attack that began with scrum-half Ruaridh Dawson breaking the red-shirted line.
Then former Hartpury pupil Matt McNab intercepted a long looping pass to run in a solo-effort against his old university, giving Pirates a 14 point margin at the interval.
Hartpury re-started quickly, and almost-immediately grabbed a penalty-try when Crane dived over while both lock Will Britton and No.8 Hugh Bokenham were sin-binned for pulling down at successive line-outs.
Pirates held firm, even with tighthead Matt Johnson also being sin-binned on the 55th minute for a high tackle.
Hartpury hooker Ethan Hunt skirted a defender to score off a quick line-out move, and Bazalgette’s boot was pin-point perfect to give the home-side the lead from over 52 metres out – which delighted the players and fans alike.
But Pirates’ pivot Tom Pittman scored off the tee as the visitors tried to regain the lead, before a Kyle Moyle running break finished with Morris muscling over for the win.
Its Hartpury’s third defeat in a row, and sees the side slip to seventh in the Championship standings.
A relieved Cornish Pirates joint head coach Gavin Cattle said: “It was tough, we’ve definitely played better and lost this season, so there’s a lot for us to review.
“We had to adapt to win that game, with three yellow cards at times when we were desperately under pressure, we had to make so many changes, and doing little things like inserting our 12 into the line-out kept us in the game.
“Hartpury put us under huge pressure at our maul, which is unusual for us, and our attacking breakdown wasn’t where it needed to be, and although we showed glimpses of what we can do, we couldn’t never get as far away from Hartpury as we needed.”
Hartpury:
Tries: George Barton 4, penalty try 44, Ethan Hunt 68
Conversions: penalty try 44, Harry Bazalgette 69
Penalties: Harry Bazalgette 30, 72
Drop Goals:
Cornish Pirates:
Tries: Harry Hocking 20, John Stevens 34, Matt McNab 37, Jacob Morris 79
Conversions: Bruce Houston 35, 38
Penalties: Bruce Houston 7, Tom Pittman 76
Drop Goals:
Teams (15-9; 1-8):
Hartpury: George Barton, Alex Forrester (Jack Reeves 69), Louis Hillman-Cooper, Tommy Mathews (Robbie Smith 66), Alex Morgan, Harry Bazalgette, Mike Austin; James Gibbons (Aristot Benz-Salomon 56), Will Crane © (Ethan Hunt 65), Jon Benz-Salomon (Joe Rees 65), Dale Lemon, Jack Davies, Josh Gray, Harry Short (Mitch Eadie 61), Jarrard Hayler (Harry Beddall 65)
Not used: Joe Williams
Pirates: Kyle Moyle, Will Trewin, Ioan Evans, Joe Elderkin, Matt McNab, Bruce Houston (Tom Pittman 72), Ruaridh Dawson (Alex Schwarz 60); Lefty Zigkiriadis (Jacob Morris 64), Harry Hocking (Iestyn Harris 58), Matt Johnson (Finlay Richardson 64), Will Britton, (Josh Williams 64), Steele Barker, Alex Everett (Will Gibson 64), John Stevens (c), Hugh Bokenham
Not used: Arthur Relton
Referee: Alex Thomas
Attendance: 1,603
Half-time: 08 – 22 (to Cornish Pirates)
Star man: Kyle Moyle (Cornish Pirates) / Harry Bazalgette (Hartpury)
Stats:
Hartpury:
Penalties conceded: 16
Line-outs won: 15
Line-outs lost: 5
Scrums won: 3
Scrums lost: 0
Sin-bins/Reds: 1/0
Cornish Pirates:
Penalties conceded: 11
Line-outs won: 11
Line-outs lost: 2
Scrums won: 4
Scrums lost: 1
Sin-bins/Reds: 3/0
