Otley 7 Cornish Pirates 13

Otley did almost everything required to come from behind and beat the high-flying Cornishmen.

Having been slightly off the pace in the first period, they came back with ambition which appeared to be reaching fruition in the dying minutes when first Robin Kitching could not hang on to a long, high pass and then Waisale Sovatabua and Kyle Dench followed up a rebound from yet another huge tackle with an open field ahead only to be pulled back for a mysterious knock-on.

The strong cross wind less prevalent this season made kicking tricky, and once again Simon Binns was sorely missed with Otley failing to take advantage while the Pirates managed to seemingly extract full advantage to maintain territorial position and exert maximum pressure.

They were up for a fight and three of their forwards were spoken to in quick succession but there was no relenting and the exchanges continued throughout the game, coming to a high just before the break when Scott Connor going to the aid of a colleague was shown red while the instigator, prop Dan Seal, got yellow.

Shading possession, it was the visitors who posed the most threat at the start but the home tackling was awesome, opposition backs being strewn around the park, and they found their best attacks foundering. In addition, they missed an early penalty chance but their forwards managed to grind their way over after 15 minutes from a five-metre line-out, prop Alan Paver claiming a try.

Following changes after the break, Mark Luffman added a new dimension to the forwards while Andy Brown and Ian Shut-tleworth posed fresh questions in attack.

Suddenly the Pirates were on the back foot and, despite being a man short for 20 minutes No 8 Tim Cowley, who had been putting it about all day, received a yellow card in the 55th minute began to take charge.

They had conceded a second try to the Cornish forwards, Cowley grounding just five minutes into the second half, but their revival brought them a score 15 minutes later.

Excellent rucking and driving ended with Matt Stockdale going over, but not to the referee's satisfaction. The attack continued from the resultant scrum where Sovatabua, drifting in from his wing, was able to pick up and worm his way over under the posts to give Kitching an easy conversion.

A penalty for Jarvis had little effect on Otley's ambitions as they strove for another score and it would surely have come with just a little more steadiness and the Pirates were mighty relieved to hear the final whistle.