BENJI RINGS CHANGES FOR HERTS

Cornwall’s head coach Dave “Benji” Thomas has freshened up his side prior to Saturday’s Bill Beaumont Cup fixture at Hertford.

Speaking to Trelawny’s Army at the conclusion to Wednesday evening’s training session at Redruth RFC, Thomas explained his side’s selection “We’ve made a few changes in the pack, Sam Hocking is unavailable this Saturday, so Mike Rawlings who came on, on Saturday and played very well takes his place. Damien Cook another who came on last Saturday and did well starts in the second row alongside Ben Hilton, Bryn Jenkins who started last week hasn’t trained this week due to illness. We’ve also got Luke Collins available this week and he comes in on the bench and will strengthen the side. Josh Lord will also brings a lot of experience from the bench.

One of the major changes is at fly-half where veteran Ian Morgan, player/coach at St. Ives, comes into the side with Josh Matavesi switching to full-back in place of the unavailability – due to injury- of Adryan Winnan. “We brought Morgan in to run the game for us, I felt we lacked that a bit on Saturday, Ian can kick us into the corners, also his goal kicking skills so hopefully if there are some penalties on Saturday he’ll be able to put them over for us. Otherwise we’ve brought Craig Bonds on to the wing for his footballing skills in place of Nick Simmons who will be on the bench. So it looks a well-balanced side really.

Asked about Saturday’s opponents Hertfordshire “Well they were defeated at Gloucestershire but on their own pitch they are going to be a handful, Cornwall have been up there twice recently and lost. It will be a different game to that against Devon and their forward orientated game, I think they will want to play a more fluid game which should suit us more and hopefully our forwards will be dominant”.

Cornwall: J Matavesi (Exeter Chiefs), R Thirlby (Moseley), R Westren (Launceston),P Nonu (Camborne), C Bonds (Redruth), I Morgan (St. Ives), M Richards (Redruth, capt); D Jacques (Redruth), O Hambly (Redruth), P Joyce (Redruth), D Cook (Redruth) B Hilton (Launceston), M Rawlings (Launceston), T Rawlings (Launceston), M Bright (Redruth)

Replacements: J Salter (Launceston), A Morcom (Newquay Hornets), L Collins (Cornish Pirates), J Lord (Launceston), L Webb (Launceston), N Simmons (Redruth), P Thirlby (Redruth)

Travelling reserve D Clackworthy (Hayle)

Posted in Bill's Blog

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