Cornish Pirates 'too relaxed' in Carmarthen Quins cup loss

Cornish Pirates boss Ian Davies accused his side of being "too relaxed" before their 17-12 loss to Carmarthen Quins in the British and Irish Cup.

Despite out-scoring their Welsh hosts by two tries to one, four penalties by Quins left the Pirates unsure if they will be at home in the quarter-finals.

"Maybe we were a little bit too relaxed," Davies told BBC Cornwall.

"We didn't think the game would go ahead because of snow, but conditions were perfect so no excuses there."

He continued: "It's something we need to look at, we've spoken about it before, the attitude when we play the (so-called) lesser teams and that's something we need to address."

Alex Cheesman scored an excellent try for the Pirates after seven minutes, converted by Kieran Hallett, but three James Dixon penalties gave the home side lead 9-7 at the break.

Straight from the restart, Jason Harries touched down to extend the lead before Rob Elloway's unconverted score, on his 150th Pirates appearance, cut the deficit to two points.

The visitors could not break through and Jack Maynard's penalty eight minutes from time sealed the win.

"We didn't stamp our authority on the game and we should have," said Davies.

"We started really well and scored a fantastic try through Alex Cheesman, it was probably one of the best tries we've scored this year, but we never had any facet of the game where we could say we were dominated.

"We made it a battle, we played some good rugby, scored a couple of good tries to their one, and their kicker had a better day than ours.

"But all round we're just disappointed that we didn't play with the intensity that we needed."