Coventry 19-30 Cornish Pirates: Pirates claim big away-day win despite double yellow

GAVIN Cattle was delighted to see his Pirates claim the spoils against a tough Coventry side despite having two players sent to the sin bin.

Back row Antonio Kiri Kiri was carded at the end of the first half with full-back Tommy Wyatt binned ten minutes from time – both for foul play – but Coventry were unable to take advantage. Co-head coach Cattle said: “I'm chuffed for the lads because it has been a tough couple of weeks – and we've picked up more injuries again so I'm not best pleased. I thought we showed a lot of character in the spells when we were down to 14 which is what ultimately won us the game.

“It showed how desperate we were to get a win. It wasn't the best of games with both teams competing hard at the breakdown which made it a mess and there wasn't a lot of flowing rugby.

“Our error count was less than last week but still higher than we want and you have to give Cov credit for pressuring the ball. Overall, there aren't many games when you play a quarter of the match with 14 men and come out on top.”

There was little between the sides in a tense error-strewn opening period. A well-worked try from Coventry prop James Harper was sandwiched by a brace of Arwell Robson penalties and a converted Rory Parata try for Pirates.

Skipper Ryan Burrows thought he had bagged a second try for Coventry only for the effort to be struck off after a discussion between the officials.

The second period proved just as cagey with the sides adding two tries apiece with Pirates also slotting over a penalty from the inchperfect Robson.

Winger Will Butt popped up with Cov's second following a scything run from full-back Louis Brown but this was cancelled out when Robson dotted down in the corner following a rock solid scrum near the Cov line.

Back row Adam Peters gave Cov hope when he went over ten minutes from the end but the visitors, although back down to 14 men, rallied and some sloppy tackling allowed centre Shae Tucker to stroll over for their vital third score.

Coventry head coach Rowland Winter said: “We weren't good enough it's as simple as that. Pirates took opportunities and we had two or three tries that we didn't complete on.”