EARLY Christmas cheer was earned by the Pirates Amateurs on Saturday as they rolled over Falmouth at home.

A bonus point was achieved in the process as well courtesy of four tries from Harry Hudson, Ashley Weston, Josh Semmems and Steve Evans in their 29-5 victory.

Their success came as they showed more clinical skills than the visitors, who came into the match with three wins on the trot and brimming with confidence.

However, the Eagles this time out found their passing radar going on the blink as offloads went too softly or requiring a high stretch to pick up.

The Amateurs on the other hand were not playing the most superb rugby of their lives, but were making the most of their chances.

This saw them pick up 17 points inside the first half hour as they got scores in the first few darts into the away 22.

Errors crept into the Eagle’s play which helped create some of the points against them with their kicking and handling of the ball on a similar level of quality to their passing at the Mennaye.

At points they will have felt hard done-by some of Henning Kaaber’s officiating, particularly at scrums, but the blunt fact is their performance did not merit any rewards.

With a spell of possession deep in the Amateurs’ half, Falmouth came close to opening the scoring in the third minute when the hosts were penalised for coming in at the side of a ruck.

Justyn Irons was not able to send his kick from 37m out on the right hand side between the posts and 180 seconds later, Steve Kent sliced open the away defence before Hudson got on the end of a couple of offloads to open the scoring.

Irons’ kicking let him down again when with the chance to give Falmouth good field position from a penalty, he failed to find touch.

He was made to pay when a chipped kick over the Eagles back-line was plucked out of the air by Hudson with Weston waiting to run in unchallenged.

With the conversion making it 14-0, Falmouth desperately needed the next score and George Hooper got the perfect chance when he had space to run into on the overlap.

But with the path to glory virtually clear, the left winger took his eye off the ball and bundled it to the ground, killing the opportunity.

Rhys Brownfield kicked an easy penalty home for the Amateurs and despite Tom Spiller being sin-binned, the hosts could not increase their lead before half time.

They would only need to wait four minutes after the break though to make it 22-0 when Evans’ clever dink of a kick was caught by Semmens and touched down.

The hosts were perhaps lucky to have 15 men still on the field after Ashley Searle was punched, but Kaaber chose not to send anyone off.

However, with 13 minutes of normal time remaining, they did lose Ben Brittain to the sin-bin for pulling down a driving maul.

The blindside flanker was joined by his openside colleague Charley Goldsworthy a minute later when he was called up for the same offence.

Falmouth made the most of this advantage to steam roller their way over the line from another solid drive with Searle getting the final grounding.

Irons’ conversion smacked into the post from the left touchline and it was the Amateurs who finished the scoring off with the game’s last play as Evans barged his large frame over for the bonus point try.

AMATEURS: 15 Kent, 14 Weston, 13 Evans, 12 Hudson, 11 Semmens, 10 R Brownfield, 9 Dugdale; 1 Skinner, 2 Stanley, 3 K Brownfield, 4 Vosper, 5 Heath, 6 Brittain, 7 Goldsworthy, 8 L Edwards.

REPS: Stevens, T Edwards, Osborne.

TRIES: Hudson (6), Weston (15), Semmens (44), Evans (80+7).

PEN: K Brownfield.

FALMOUTH: 15 J Symons, 14 Spiller, 13 M Symons, 12 Stuthridge, 11 Hooper, 10 Irons, 9 Tyson; 1 Searle, 2 Church, 3 Kevern, 4 Baglow, 5 Instance, 6 David, 7 Fitzpatrick, 8 Bailey.

REPS: Geach, Carne, Rodda.

TRY: Searle (69).

MAN-OF-THE-MATCH: Steve Evans.