Cornwall’s Twickenham hope for scrap after Kent loss

Cornwall’s hopes of claiming the county championship took a huge blow as they lost 34-33 to reigning champions Kent.

The hosts played more than half of the game with 14 men after Oliver Walliker was sent off for a punch three minutes before the break.

But Kent managed to record victory over the Black and Gold for the second year running and put themselves in the driving seat for a return to Twickenham next month.

Kent face Surrey – who lost 63-7 to Hampshire on Saturday after being thrashed 55-0 by Cornwall last week – in their final group game.

“It’s very frustrating,” Cornwall head coach Graham Dawe told BBC Radio Cornwall.

“We were warriors. We’re missing a few of our front line players but the lads came in today and did the jersey proud and can only be very disappointed in themselves that they didn’t finish the job because we had opportunities to finish the job .”

Duncan Tout gave Cornwall the perfect start with his first-minute try, but Andrew Denham crossed twice for Kent and the hosts led 17-7 after 20 minutes.

Walliker was sent off after aiming a punch at Mark Bright and Tommy Lee Southworth’s half-time kick meant it was 17-14 Cornwall.

Bryan Hotson’s penalty and Leo Fielding’s try extended Kent’s lead to 27-14 10 minutes into the second half, but skipper Ben Priddey and Josh Semmens crossed over four minutes to see Cornwall trail 27-26.

Barney Stone got what proved to be the winning try with 11 minutes remaining before Priddey got his second score with four minutes remaining to set up a tense finish.

“I’m blown away by the players because I think they’ve done enough,” added Dawe, whose side look set to miss the final of the competition at Twickenham for just the third time in the last 10 editions.

“They’ve traveled enough miles to come to practice and put in enough effort to win this group and unfortunately we fell short.”

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