Plymouth Albion 9 Cornish Pirates 13

The Cornish Pirates finally laid their Brickfields hoodoo to rest – winning on Devon soil for the first time in more than four years – but had to withstand a ferocious late Albion fight back to claim the spoils in this British & Irish Cup pool game.

Referee Darren Gamage allowed a mammoth 11 minutes of injury time at the end of the game and Albion, with the veteran Graham Dawe directing operations in the front row, kept the ball alive unleashing wave after wave of punishing driving mauls on the Pirates line.

But the Cornish side stood firm in defence, even with Dave Ward sin-binned for persistent foul play, as Brickfields greeted the final whistle in deflated silence.

Plymouth Albion led 9-3 at half-time through three Kieran Hallett penalties to one from Rob Cook and with the penalty count steadily mounting against the Pirates, their early promise in a scrappy game seemed to be coming to nothing.

Once again the Pirates started on the front foot as the second half got underway but after Cook had knocked-on with the Albion line at his mercy he made amends with a 59th minute penalty.

The sin-binning of Albion lock Tyler Hotson minutes later then proved the turning point of the game.

Rhodri McAtee went close for the Pirates with a fine break but a driving maul 15 minutes from time drove Albion back over their on line and prop Scott Franklin claimed the score. Cook converted.

Albion scrum-half Ed Lewsey wasted a late chance with a two man overlap as his side sought a decisive reply but the Pirates held on through the protracted stoppage time to claim a well deserved win.

Plymouth Albion: Lee, Kingdom, Hopper, Tu`ipulotu (Johns 53), Gibson, Hallett (capt) (Davies 78), Lewsey, Porter (Rice 70), Clark (Dawe 78), Hopkins, Hotson (sin-bin 60-70), Lewis (Skelding 70), Waterhouse (Collier 78), Sprangle, Stephen. Replacements (not used) – Kessell.

Pens – Hallett (3)

Yellow card – Hotson

Cornish Pirates: Cook, McAtee, Ireland, Luke (Devlin h/t), Jackson (Davies 77), Bentley, Cattle (capt), Storer (Rimmer 53), Ward (sin-bin 79), Brits (Franklin 50), Collins (Myerscough 50), Gulliver, Morgan, Betty (Evans 77), Cowan (Prosser 78).

Try – Franklin

Con - Cook

Pens – Cook

Yellow card – Ward

Referee – D.Gamage (RFU)

Attendance – 2,413