A SUNNY spring Saturday at the Memorial Ground as the Saracens played host to injury stricken Illogan side, writes Jack Thomas.

Penryn players James Evans and Ben Harris bolstered Illogan’s line-up, who had beaten Borough in a pre-season friendly.

James Salisbury kicked the match off and winger Jake Bailey almost made an immediate impact in the opening first minutes but was forced into touch.

The visitors held the possession to which the Borough defence had to fight hard to regain, with Ryan Churcher and Will Paine making some monstrous tackles.

The match was back and forth in the centre of the pitch with Penryn in attack and winger Bailey seemingly leaving his hands back in the changing room gifting Illogan with no less than three consecutive knock-ons.

Things on the opposite wing were not quite as clumsy, with debutant Jack Hesketh crossing the line with his first touch of the ball.

Illogan stepped up the pressure on the Borough back line with Jules Kennedy stopping what seemed like a certain try, although they would go over the line not long afterwards.

However, Penryn fired straight back at Illogan with Bailey darting through a series of missed tackles to cross the line.

Borough’s forwards got their opportunity to break the Illogan defensive line with Oskar Fields getting agonisingly close to the try line twice, but lock Jack Heazelton did pick his way through a gap to extend Borough’s lead further.

Bailey scored an almost identical try to his first to go into the break with a commanding lead.

Penryn carried the momentum into the second with centre Chris Hellier bouncing the opposition out of the way to carry Penryn into the Illogan half before winger Bailey darted over the line for his hat-trick.

Substitutes Jason Jowett and CJ Timmins both increased the scoreline further with two quick fire tries as Illogan were visibly struggling to keep up with the pace.

Although seemingly out of contention, Illogan capitalised on a momentary lapse in concentration and several missed tackles to score their final try of the afternoon.

The hosts fought their way back into the away half with several well worked forwards drives, with props Aaron Cockrell and debutant Ryan Burley leading the marches. With exhaustion kicking in, Illogan could not contain the pressure and gifted Heazelton his second of the day.