Cornish Pirates begin Championship season with 21-14 Richmond win

Robin Wedlake scored Cornish Pirates' first try of the season

Cornish Pirates began their new Championship campaign with a 21-14 win over Richmond at the Mennaye Field.

Robin Wedlake's try gave the hosts a 20th-minute lead before Richmond were awarded a penalty try four minutes before half-time following a deliberate knock on by Rory Parata.

Callum Sirker's try put the Pirates 14-7 up 10 minutes after half-time and Alex Schwarz got a 77th-minute third.

Tom Mills' try for Richmond a minute later set up a tense finish.

The match was one of the first played in England since the announcement of the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.

"I take my hat off to Richmond, they dug in," Cornish Pirates joint-head coach Gavin Cattle told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"Sometimes you have to give the defence credit. The amount of pressure we put them under in that first 25 or 30 minutes and we didn't come out with the points, that was down to their grit.

"But what I liked about it was you could see our boys were excited to play and worked hard off the ball and hard in defence."