Cornwall's Twickenham hopes in tatters after Kent loss
Cornwall's hopes of reclaiming the County Championship have taken a huge blow as they lost 34-33 at reigning champions Kent.
The hosts played more than half of the game with 14 men after having Oliver Walliker sent off for a punch three minutes before the break.
But Kent were able to register a win over the Black and Gold for a second successive year and put themselves in the driving seat to return to Twickenham next month.
Kent face Surrey - who lost 63-7 to Hampshire on Saturday after being thrashed 55-0 by Cornwall last week - in their final pool game.
"It's very frustrating," Cornwall head coach Graham Dawe told BBC Radio Cornwall.
"We were warriors. We're missing a couple of our frontline players, but boy the boys turned up today and did the shirt proud, and can only be very disappointed with themselves that they didn't finish the job because we had opportunities to finish the job."
Duncan Tout gave Cornwall the perfect start with his first-minute try, but Andrew Denham went over twice for Kent as the hosts led 17-7 after 20 minutes.
Walliker was sent off after aiming a punch at Mark Bright and Tommy Lee Southworth's try on the stroke of half-time meant Cornwall trailed 17-14.
Bryan Hotson's penalty and Leo Fielding's try extended Kent's lead to 27-14 10 minutes into the second half, but skipper Ben Priddey and Josh Semmens went over in a four-minute spell to see Cornwall trail 27-26.
Barney Stone got what proved to be the winning try with 11 minutes to go before Priddey got his second score with four minutes left to set up a tense finish.
"I'm gutted for the players because I think they've done enough," added Dawe, whose side look set to miss out on the competition's final at Twickenham for just the third time in the past 10 editions.
"They've travelled enough miles to come to training and put enough effort in to win this group and sadly we've come up short."
