Cornwall beat Midlands Hurricanes 24-22 for first League One win of the season

Cornwall head coach Mike Abbott has hailed his side after a dramatic first win of the season at Midlands Hurricanes.

David Weetman and Cameron Brown scored in the final five minutes after the hosts’ Blake Broadbent had been sin-binned to seal a 24-22 win.

The victory keeps Cornwall second-from-bottom of League One, but they are now four points off Hurricanes and North Wales Crusaders.

“I think in our recent games we’ve been building to it and we spoke about it after games where we have been good in patches,” Abbott said after the win.

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish and I think we’ve built on something and we need to keep that going.

“We’re a good side, and I’m made up for the boys because they’ve taken a bit of stick this year for some performances.”

Cornwall started well as Tom Ashton gave them a sixth-minute lead, but three tries in an 11-minute period from Liam Welham, Jake Sweeting and Jason Bass gave Hurricanes a 16-6 lead at half-time.

Nathan Conroy replied for Cornwall early in the second half, but when Callum McLelland went over just after the hour mark it looked as though Midlands would be victorious.

But Cornwall stuck to their task and when Broadbent was sin-binned for a late hit with six minutes left the Choughs struck twice to avenge a painful 72-6 home loss to the Hurricanes last month.

“I thought they put us under a lot of pressure in that first half,” added Abbott.

“At half time I said in the second half that’s going to tell on you tell on you, there’s going to be times in the second half where you’ve done that much defending where you’re going to have to work overtime.

“They bought into that and they all agreed they were going to work.

“So to score late on like we did just shows how really well we did.”