COVENTRY — Cornish Pirates conceded a club-record 73 points in a Champ fixture as Coventry ran in 11 tries to secure a 73-40 victory at Coventry. The defeat eclipsed Pirates' previous worst of 69 points conceded in their 69-8 loss to Worcester Warriors in April 2015, leaving joint-head coach Gavin Cattle to insist his side are not as bad as the scoreline suggests.
"It's never nice to see a scoreline like that," Cattle told BBC Radio Cornwall. "There was obviously a key point in the two yellow cards, I think that's where the game escaped us and then we were trying to pull a rabbit out of the hat in the sense of just playing from everywhere. Then we fell foul of like a couple of loose passes and that just widened the gap, which obviously you've seen the heavy scoreline."
Pirates were hampered before kick-off when centre Joe Elderkin was injured in the warm-up, compounding the late-week loss of his midfield partner Chester Ribbons. Josh Radcliffe shifted into midfield to partner Harry Ascherl, with youngster Finn Love filling in on the wing. Despite Dan Hiscocks giving Pirates a 10th-minute lead, they trailed 33-7 after 27 minutes before tries from Milo Hallam, Alessandro Heaney and Ascherl in the final 20 minutes of the first half cut the deficit to 33-26 at the break, with both sides securing try-scoring bonus points in an entertaining opening half.
The contest turned early in the second half when fly-half Arwel Robson and replacement forward Matt Cannon were yellow-carded within three minutes of one another. Coventry scored five tries in a 13-minute period surrounding the duo entering the sin bin to pull away, with Pirates only able to respond through Matt Pritchard and Jamie Clark late in the second half.
"The back line, if you looked at it, maybe lacked a little cohesion from 13 outwards," Cattle added. "But those boys did the best they could, they're learning on the job and that's part of the process. It's only round two and you're never as bad as you think you are in these results. I know the scoreboard looks awful there, but there were some promising moments especially that spell in the first half where we really battled and got back in the game. But there's some big learnings on there from the kick game to inconsistency at the collision, it's something that we'll go back to the drawing board."