Pirates 'in the zone' after fourth successive win

Cornish Pirates raced into a 19-0 lead against Doncaster with a quarter of the game to go

Cornish Pirates are "in the zone" after a fourth Championship successive win, according to joint-head coach Gavin Cattle.

The Pirates - who had lost seven successive matches in all competitions - have now won their past four after a 19-14 win over Doncaster Knights at the Mennaye.

The victory kept the Penzance side in sixth place in the Championship with five wins from nine games.

"We were in the zone today, we have been the last three or four weeks," Cattle told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"We have rode our luck a little bit, but we've also created our own luck as well.

"We talk about the rugby gods. The rugby gods stay a little bit closer if you're doing all the right things when people aren't watching.

"I genuinely think these boys have put a lot of graft in in the last four weeks and I'm glad they're getting a bit of reward."

Arthur Relton's 29th-minute try gave the Pirates a 7-0 lead at the break before on-loan Exeter Chiefs lock Lewis Pearson and scrum-half Dan Hiscocks went over in a three-minute spell 10 minutes after the break to put the home side 19-0 up.

Doncaster - who had some good first-half chances - finally replied as first Ben Murphy scored a 65th-minute try before ex-Pirate Maliq Holden got a second nine minutes later in windy conditions.

"I thought that was a real gritty performance," Cattle added.

"19-0 up and then a couple of late tries put us in a bit of an ending that we didn't want to the game, it was a little less relaxed, but the effort was massive.

"I'm just proud of that really.

"We absorbed a lot of pressure, but that's what it's about when you have conditions like that.

"You know it's going to turn at some point and we took some really good tries as well."