Dawe calls for County Championship 'reboot'

Former England hooker Graham Dawe has coached Cornwall since 2013

Cornwall head coach Graham Dawe has said the County Championship needs a "reboot" after his side's campaign came to an end.

The Duchy's team finished second in their Bill Beaumont Cup pool after a 48-24 win over Hampshire.

Their loss to champions Kent last week meant they needed winless Surrey to get an unlikely win over Kent this week to have a chance of reaching Twickenham.

But all hopes were dashed when Surrey pulled out of the fixture on Friday.

Kent will face Yorkshire in the final at Twickenham later this month.

"I'm a bit disappointed with it," Dawe told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"They do need to have a reboot, a rethink about the whole competition, maybe playing a little bit earlier in the spring or in the autumn, or whatever it is.

"These players need something to go for as well, so they need another representative team above this that they can aspire to play for, even if it's only one game a year.

"Like the England Counties was, but maybe something a bit different.

"These players want to test themselves and you could see there's four or five Cornish players out there that on any given day could be in a very good rugby team."

On the field, a try from Duncan Tout and two scores in four minutes towards the end of the first half by Dan Tyrrell saw Cornwall lead Hampshire 20-17 at half-time at Redruth's Recreation Ground.

Hugo Culverhouse crossed 40 seconds after the break to extend Cornwall's lead before CJ Boyce's try was sandwiched between two Jordan Nicholls scores as Cornwall crossed three times in a nine-minute spell midway through the second half before a late penalty try for Hampshire.

The win left Cornwall four points off Kent, who edged past the Black and Gold by a point last week.

"It was a good end to the season," said Dawe.

"We were under a bit of pressure to win, obviously, but I was very pleased with the way the boys stuck at it in the first half and did the simple things well.

"Maybe in the second half we tried too hard, but we had a good 10 or 15 minutes in the middle of the game and we put them to bed."