Cornish Pirates' boss Ian Davies unhappy after Doncaster loss

Cornish Pirates have won just one of their last five matches

Cornish Pirates boss Ian Davies has strongly criticised his team after they lost 30-13 at home to 14-man Doncaster.

The Knights had Bevon Armitage sent off for two yellow cards after 25 minutes but Pirates failed to build on a 13-10 lead they had after Kieran Hallett's 43rd-minute try.

"That isn't a performance that we expect from the Pirates," Davies said.

"It was very poor and some of them have got a real hard couple of weeks coming up to get their shirts back."

The Penzance-based club have now lost their last two games against the sides immediately above the relegation-zone, having been beaten by Moseley last week.

It comes after the club had become the first side this season to defeat Bristol, who had won 19 games in-a-row.

"At the end of the day, 22 players didn't perform and Doncaster beat us with 14 men, so there's no arguments from us," Davies told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"It's easy to raise yourself against the top sides - you've got that fear factor. But I tell you now, they'll have fear factor in Tuesday and Wednesday this week in training.

"Two sides that we would have expected to beat - no offence to Moseley and Doncaster - but we've lost both and if we'd have won those we'd be fourth and we'd be in the play-offs."

The Pirates travel to Nottingham on Friday, then have a week off before they host Rotherham live on television.

"We'll be rolling our sleeves up ready for Rotherham when they come here live on Sky and we'll probably raise our game because it'll be a chance for people to be in the shop window," Davies said.