Ian Davies: Cornish Pirates performing 'better' than expected

Cornish Pirates ended Bristol's 19-game winning streak last week

Cornish Pirates boss Ian Davies says his side are performing better than he expected this season.

The Pirates became the first team to beat Bristol this season and Davies's side are sixth in the Championship.

"We have a new group of players with a lot of young, untried players, so we're doing better than we thought we would," Davies told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"Last week's win has put some icing on the cake, we've now got to put a few sprinkles on it and a chocolate flake."

Pirates travel to Moseley without hooker Rob Elloway, who scored twice last week.

He joined London Welsh on loan on Thursday until the end of the season and is replaced by Tom Channon for the trip to the Midlands.

"It's an opportunity for him to play in the Premiership, he's 31 years old now so he's certainly got the talent," said Davies.

"He'll be coming back to us, and if we do pick up any injuries ourselves then there's a clause in his contract that he comes back straight away.

"Tom was left out last week because we knew Rob was going and we didn't want to risk both hookers."

Pirates have not won at Moseley since February 2009, drawing three and losing once in the intervening time.

"Ever since I've been here Moseley's been a difficult place for us to go," added Davies.

"I don't know why, but they play particularly well at home, we normally play them here and put anything between 25 and 50 points on them, but when we go there we struggle."