A LAST minute Tom Kessell try helped the Cornish Pirates to a 29-19 win over Moseley at the Mennaye.

Nerves had been jangling around the ground as the home side saw a 22-0 lead go down to 22-19 in the space of 12 second half minutes.

But the hosts held on and released the tension as substitute Matt Bolwell broke through before offloading to his scrum-half.

It was Kessell's second try of the game and he was joined on the scoresheet by Matt Evans and Aaron Carpenter.

The Cornishmen had dominated the game up until the hour mark as Moseley found themselves struggling to get their set pieces working or avoid the wrath of the referee's whistle.

But a deliberate knock-on by Evans saw the Pirates full-back sinbinned and sparked a resurgence from the visitors.

During his time off the field, Harry Hone and Drew Cheshire went over for Moseley, with both tries getting two points added on from Samuel Olver's conversions.

Then when scrum-half Sam brown touched down in the left corner with eight minutes left, the tension around Mennaye Field could be cut with a knife.

The Pirates managed to gather themselves together though, first putting in a hard shift in defence as Moseley edged near their line in the dying minutes before securing the win and a bonus point at the end.

This tension did not match the mood at the game's beginning as the Pirates came out looking hungry for heir first win of the season.

Their greed for points was fed early on as just four minutes in a break by Kieran Hallett set up the opening try as he broke through the line before offloading to Kessell to finish the job off.

The fly-half set up the second 13 minutes later when he collected an up and under kick, but could keep his balance despite having a wide open space to run into towards the goal line.

But standing near him was Evans, who took the offload and ran unchallenged over the line.

Moseley could not get to grips with the home defence and errors left them constantly spending time camped in their own half.

On the other side, the Pirates' backs were showing plenty of endeavour and their forwards were linking up well and bashing holes open on the attack.

They also got their driving maul working in good shape, which created the third try as they moved from the Moseley 22m line to the try zone with Carpenter touching the ball down.

After the break, the Pirates appeared to be set on killing off Moseley and a successful penalty from Hallett after an offside call was made in a central location 20m out meant the visitors needed four tries to get in front.

However, despite this seeming unlikely at the time, it nearly came to be as Moseley put in a big push to steal something from the game.

After Evans had been shown yellow during a dangerous attack set up by Hone's breakthrough the defence, Moseley went for a line out 5m from the Pirates' goal line.

Hooker Adam Caves had been unable to get his throwing right so far in the match, but found his mark at last, allowing a driving maul to start which gave Hone the chance to get over.

This moment clearly gave them hope and four minutes later, Cheshire found himself on the end of a passing move spreading play in the Pirates 22 for another try.

Shellshock had gripped the hosts by his point and life got worse soon after when after a maul broke down, Moseley got the ball out and into the Pirates half before Brown jinked his way in.

What had looked like an impossible lead to mess up had now fallen to just three points, but the Pirates came out of their slumber to clean up the situation.

As the minutes ticked down, Scott Tolmie showed the defence a clean set of heels as the replacement hooker broke deep into Pirates terrority.

But the Pirates got men back and kept Moseley at bay before the away side were penalised for offside, much to the home team's relief.

Then they made sure of the as the clocked ebbed closer to the 80 minute mark as they got into the Moseley half before Bolwell's excellent run caught the defence cold.

He was stopped 5m short, but just like in his first try, Kessell was in the right place again to receive an offload and double his tally for the day.

His score also added a bonus point to proceedings to help lift his side from bottom to tenth place in the Greene King IPA Championship.

A trip away to Doncaster on Saturday is the next game for the Pirates.

PIRATES: 15 Matt Evans, 14 Kieran Goss, 13 Tom Riley, 12 Tom Henrickson, 11 Kyle Moyle (Michael Pope, 71), 10 Kieran Hallett, 9 Tom Kessell; 1 Jack Andrew (Jamal Ford-Robinson, 41), 2 Aaron Carpenter, 3 Alan Paver (Tyler Gendall, 60), 4 Will Carrick-Smith (Will Graulich, 71), 5 Darren Barry, 6 Chris Morgan (c), 7 Joe Atkinson, 8 Laurie McGlone (Matt Bolwell, 61).

UNUSED REPLACEMENTS: Jack Innard, Alex Dancer.

TRIES: Kessell (4, 80), Evans (17), Carpenter (24).

CONS: Hallett 3/4.

PEN: Hallett (54).

SINBIN: Evans (56-66).

MOSELEY: 15 Mike Penn, 14 Drew Cheshire, 13 Greg King, 12 Will Owen, 11 Scott Armstrong, 10 Caolan Ryan (Sam Olver, 51), 9 Sam Brown; 1 Craig Voisey (Danny Hobbs-Awoyemi, 58), 2 Adam Caves (Scott Tolmie, 59), 3 Aaron Gardiner (Stefan Thorp, 58), 4 Greg Charlton (Alex Woolford, 55), 5 Mike Powell (c), 6 Harry Hone, 7 Charley Thomas, 8 Ed Siggery.
UNUSED REPLACEMENTS: Neil Dacres, David Brazier.
TRIES: Hone (60), Cheshire (64), Brown (72)
CONS: Olver 2/3.

MAN-OF-THE-MATCH: Kieran Hallett.