Camborne 34, Wadebridge Camels 22
Camborne warmed the hearts of their supporters on a bitterly cold afternoon with a bonus point win over their Cornish rivals in a pulsating Tribute South West 1 West encounter at the Recreation Ground to maintain their promotion challenge, writes Bill Hooper.
Camborne winger Luke Johnson enjoyed a fine game scoring two of the Cherry and Whites five tries amongst a personal point's haul of 19 to cap a man-of-the-match performance.
Camborne got off to a great start with an opening try scored by scrum-half Dean Pascoe after just 90 seconds.
The home side continued to carry the game to their opponents with the Cherry and Whites' backline posing a constant threat to the Wadebridge line.
Wadebridge looked to play their way back through their forwards using the driving game of No.8 Gary Gynn.
Fly-half Josh Taylor saw a penalty attempt come back off a post as the Camels continued to be frustrated on the scoreboard.
Instead it was Camborne who went further ahead with a second try scored by centre Laurie Manna who sliced his way through the cover to score a well-worked try on 23 minutes putting the Cherry and Whites 10-0 up.
Camels pressure eventually saw the visitors get some reward. Loose line out ball in the Camborne twenty-two was snaffled by Wadebridge lock Dan Lumb who charged over in the scoreboard corner. Taylor kicked a good conversion to cut the deficit to just three points on the half-hour mark.
The North Cornwall side went back on the attack moving the ball wide, however Johnson profiting from an interception on his own ten metre line showed great pace to run in Camborne's third try of the first half. The young winger now assumed kicking duties and calmly converted his own score to put Camborne 17-7 ahead.
Camels were having to play catch up rugby and the pressure was telling, Taylor missed another penalty attempt and other opportunities were spurned.
Instead Camborne rounded off the half with a fourth try, a good period of pressure saw Manna and No.8 Dave Roberts put Johnston in for his second try, his conversion leaving the Cherry and Whites 24-7 up at the break.
Taylor kicked an early penalty for the Camels to reduce the deficit to 24-10.
Johnson almost scored a third try only to be denied by the Camels' cover from a chip and chase.
Camborne did get a fifth try on 60 minutes when attacking towards the scoreboard corner Pascoe put in a deft kick over the scrum for winger Rob Floyd to gather and score. Johnson kicked a fine third conversion, as he did a penalty, just moments later to put Camborne 34-10 up.
Wadebridge to their credit didn't let their heads drop and fought back to score a couple of late tries through replacement Miles Davey and scrum-half Adam Collings with James Grubb adding the conversion with the final kick of the game.
Camborne: J Parma, R Floyd, L Manna, S Kenward, L Johnson, R Kevern, D Pascoe; N Endean, S Bartle, M Hearn, J Griffiths, B Kemp, M Woolcock, J Goldsworthy, D Roberts (capt)
Replacements (all used): J Jackson, J Court, J Lamsin
Tries- Pascoe, Manna, Johnson (2), Floyd, Cons – Johnson (3), Pen - Johnson
Wadebridge Camels: C Lees, S Johns, W Pengelly, J Grubb, D Hawkey, J Taylor, A Collings; G Bilkey, M Ballard, Z Cinnamond, D Lumb, M Grubb, B Collings, S Stone (capt), G Gynn
Replacements (all used): M Angwyn, R Treleven, M Davey
Tries – Lumb, Davey, Collings, Cons – Taylor, J Grubb, Pen – Taylor
Referee: Simon Lord (CRRS)
Camborne-man-of-the-match: Luke Johnson
Crowd: 447.