I was in the League Express office on Saturday afternoon when I switched on my OurLeague App account to watch Cornwall RLFC’s first ever game as a professional club.
They had made the long journey to North Wales to face the Crusaders at their current home ground in Colwyn Bay, which is located on an attractive stretch of Welsh coastline.
Naturally I feared that the new club would go home after a defeat, but I was keen to see just how heavy their defeat might be against a side that is expected to be one of the frontrunners for promotion from League One this season.
The game started at 5.30pm and by 6.00pm the Crusaders were already winning 30-0 and I had to be elsewhere, so sadly I switched off and headed away from the office, expecting to learn later that rate of scoring would continue and that the Crusaders would run up something like 80 points.
So to then find that the final score was 62-22 represented something of a minor triumph for the Cornwall team. And that was even more impressive when I discovered that they had pulled back to 34-22 on 50 minutes.
So it wasn’t too surprising to read that Cornwall’s head coach, the experienced Neil Kelly, responded to the result by saying that his side can take “big positives” from the defeat, which bodes well for their opening home game against Midlands Hurricanes this Sunday.
Just after I switched off, Matty Turton scored Cornwall’s first ever try.
And their stirring comeback in the second half began when the former Keighley player Harry Aaronson intercepted to score (pictured right), while further tries by Liam Whitton and Sam Snell left Cornwall only twelve points adrift.
“As I said before the game, I was looking at this match in terms of a performance,” Kelly told the cornwallrlfc.co.uk website.
“For a team that has had eight weeks together, a tough recruitment process and playing against a good team in this division, I think we can take big positives.
“The one negative in there is the scoreline, but in the game itself there are massive positives as a team and from individuals too.
“North Wales have had a good run in the Challenge Cup, a good league win last week and yes, this is our first game.
“In the last five or ten minutes we did concede some tries which were disappointing and I do need to level at the players that we don’t need to concede some of those scores. However, there was a tale to the game and when we completed our sets, we competed. And when we completed our sets in the second half, we had momentum and scored two or three tries in succession.
“Then we stopped completing our sets and we allowed North Wales to build momentum themselves that we found irresistible and that’s where those tries came from.
“The game perhaps highlighted to us where our next piece of learning will be.”
Although Cornwall’s second-half blitz gave the club and its potential supporters plenty of encouragement for the 2022 season moving forward, Kelly remained philosophical when looking ahead to the home clash with Midlands Hurricanes.
He added: “You have to start again in every game and if we haven’t done things right (against North Wales) we need to fix that up in the coming weeks. As I said there are massive positives from our opening match but the North Wales result has no bearing on next week’s game
“Just because we competed during periods of this game, it doesn’t mean we will compete next week. We have to start all over again from tackle one and pass one.
“We have to demonstrate a desire to eradicate the negative things in our performance that led to the disjointed score line at the end.”
That game against the newly named Hurricanes, who went down at home to Swinton on Sunday, will be another historic clash in the delightful small town of Penryn.
I would love to be there, but the next best thing will be to watch the game again on the OurLeague App.
I’m sure plenty of League Express readers will join me in doing just that.
From small acorns . . . . .
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