Challenge Cup: Cornwall 14-20 Rochdale Mayfield - Cornish debut ends in defeat

Harry Aaronson's try for Cornwall got them within two points of Rochdale Mayfield late on

Rochdale Mayfield held on to end Cornwall's hopes of a debut Challenge Cup triumph as they came away from Penryn with a 20-14 second-round win.

Sam Wright gave Rochdale an early lead but Tom Ashton pulled a try back for the hosts before Wayne English went over again for the visitors.

Travis Long's try 57 seconds after the break gave Rochdale breathing space.

Scores from Cameron Brown and Harry Aaronson set up a tense finish before Harry Sheridan's late try for Rochdale.

It is the second successive season that the National Conference side have reached the third round of the Challenge Cup.

• Cornwall prepare to make Challenge Cup history

In an area more associated with the 15-man code, Cornwall's fans came out to welcome the first ever game in rugby league's showpiece competition to be held in the duchy.

Rochdale had the better of the early skirmishes, and when Wright sold an eighth-minute dummy 10 metres out he created a hole in the Cornish defence and wriggled through to score - a try that frustrated the hosts after what looked like a knock-on in the build-up.

Cornwall replied five minutes later when Ashton went over in the left corner with their first foray into the Rochdale red zone.

No Challenge Cup tie had ever been played in Cornwall in the competition's 127-year history

The visitors had the better of the first-half territory, with Cornwall's defence impressing as they repelled a number of attacks, but they were eventually breached five minutes from the break when English went over in the corner after a good break by Travis Long and a long searching pass by his brother Devlin.

Travis Long marked an excellent start for Rochdale with their third try after Sean Penkywicz's superb break from inside his own half set up the Australian to go in under the posts.

The hosts' first chance of the second half came from a 60th-minute scrum 20 metres out from the line, but the visiting defence held firm and Cornwall turned the ball over.

Rochdale almost scored a minute later when hooker Penkywicz made another dangerous break and released Travis Long, but the Choughs scrambled to keep them out.

Cornwall hit back with a wonderful try with 10 minutes to go as the impressive Harry Aaronson broke from deep within his own half and fed Liam Whitton, who passed to Brown on his shoulder to round off a 90-metre move.

It galvanised the hosts as Nathan Cullen was held up before Aaronson pounced on a knock on to acrobatically dive into the corner to reduce the scores to 14-16 a few minutes later.

Any hope of a comeback evaporated almost immediately as Sheridan took advantage of Wright's break to seal the win and break Cornish hearts.

Cornwall head coach Mike Abbott told BBC Sport:

"We're better than that. I said it after the Midlands Hurricanes game last week as well, but we've got to start showing it.

"We can't get to round seven or round eight and we're still saying 'we're better than that'.

"They're hurting in there, the chat after the game was very little - there was nothing I could say that they were going to take in.

"They won't feel as low ever again as they feel right now, so we'll regroup, we'll sit down and have a good, honest chat with one another when we get back on Tuesday.

"We'll kick on from there, but it's not great, it needs to be better, and we are better."

Rochdale Mayfield head coach Sam Butterworth told BBC Sport:

"We're over the moon to be honest, it's really big for our club.

"We came down here, we fancied our chances, we've not come here just to make up the numbers.

"I thought towards the end the scoreline flattered them a bit, we must have bombed three or four chances just from a lack of push when we made clean breaks, but we still came to a League One team and won, so we're over the moon.

"It took us eight-and-a-half-hours getting here and it's going to be all the sweeter going back."