SEASON’S END

So another Cornish rugby season comes to end with Cornwall keeping her place in the Bill Beaumont Cup for next year following their nail-biting win over Kent at Canterbury.

I spoke to Benji Thomas this week and despite rumours to the contrary I reckon Benji may well be back in harness for Cornwall once again next season. The man is just so passionate about Cornish rugby.

He’d like to get his squad for the County Championship named much earlier in the season so those players can make themselves available, he would also like to be able to get the players together at times during the season to help prepare the Championship.

Of course there are many factors that can sink the best laid plans as we saw this season with the bad weather delaying the completion of the league program, but with Cornwall effectively only picking from two clubs Redruth and Launceston from the National Leagues any disruption like last season will make Cornwall’s chances of progress very difficult. We just don’t have a sufficent depth of players at this moment in time outside the two National League 2 South sides.

Congratulations must go to Aaron Penberthy (Redruth) and Ben Hilton (Launceston) on their selection for the England Counties tour to Spain beginning this Saturday in Madrid.

Congratulations also to Hugh Vyvyan who picked up a winners medal for Saracens in the Aviva Premiership Final against Leicester Tigers on Saturday. Hugh from a well-known Cornish family is set to go part-time with Sarries next season as he looks to wind down his rugby career.

The Cornish Pirates took their Championship challenge against eventual Champions Worcester Warriors all the way. Their televised matches on SKY certainly gave Cornwall a boost with some stunning shots of Mount’s Bay beaming around the world.

The Pirates will now look to go one better next season and challenge again for that Premiership place with hopefully the Stadium for Cornwall finally getting off the ground and building work getting under way to under-pin their push.

So it’s all over, well not quite for me one more big game to look forward to and that’s the Orange Top 14 final on Saturday between Toulouse and Montpellier. It should be a cracker and you can catch it on ESPN or TV5 monde.

Posted in Bill's Blog

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