Championship Cup: Cornish Pirates keep perfect record despite 'poor' Richmond win

Carwyn Penny's second-half try helped Cornish pirates claim a bonus point

Cornish Pirates coach Gavin Cattle says his side were 'poor' in their 25-12 Championship Cup win over Richmond.

The bonus-point win keeps the club top of their pool with four wins from four games and one more victory would all but assure them a home semi-final.

But Cattle says his side - which had eight changes - must improve, having lost their last two league games going into the Richmond win.

"It was well below par," Cattle told BBC Radio Cornwall.

• Pirates target Championship Cup success

"It wasn't pretty at times, but you've got to take the positives sometimes, four tries, a bonus-point win.

"We were poor in terms of how we kept possession. Our continuity was terrible, our set-piece had a massive foothold in the game and we didn't convert them into points either.

"That's something that we'll address this week, but getting over the whitewash four times, five points is the maximum you can get, we'll take that as a positive."

Tries from Will Britton and Harvey Beaton helped the Penzance-based side lead 15-0 at half time before Zuriel Makele pulled a try back early in the second half.

But scores from Carwyn Penny and Arthur Relton either side of a Luke Spring try for Richmond helped ensure a bonus point with the Pirates the only side in the competition to keep a 100% record.

"We were just lethargic between transitions and then we'd show a glimpse of good stuff, then there'd be a skill error," added a frustrated Cattle.

"I just felt we lost of the pace of the game then and it was a bit of a flat game, our skill level was nowhere near it.

"But there's a lot of new combinations in that team, but even so some of those lads will be disappointed with some of the skill errors, but five points and move on to the next."