Cornish Pirates 'pretty ugly' in Caldy victory

Cornish Pirates are five points behind fourth-placed Coventry in the Championship table

Cornish Pirates joint-head coach Gavin Cattle described his side's 27-24 win over Caldy as "pretty ugly".

Pirates trailed 12-5 at the break in the Championship fixture before scoring three second-half tries as they recovered to get their third successive bonus-point win.

The victory keeps Pirates fifth in the table with five games to play.

"It was pretty ugly," Cattle told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"We like looked like we had not a lot of energy in that first half.

"There was a lot of disjointed combinations in there and we expected to be a bit clunky, but we just didn't quite get that energy for whatever reason.

"We'll will have a look at that, but I thought the response at half-time in that aspect was better.

"We left some points out there to close the game, but credit to Caldy, they're a good mauling team and you can see they can play a bit as well."

Callum Ridgway put Caldy in front after two minutes before Harry Hocking's try levelled the scores soon after, only for Charlie Hyde to cross midway through the half to give Caldy a 12-5 lead.

But a try from Dan Hiscocks before a penalty try and a score from Alex Everett saw Pirates go 24-12 up midway through the second period.

Dom Hanson pulled an unconverted try back for Caldy, but Bruce Houston's penalty secured the win for the hosts before Hanson got a second try in the dying seconds.

"There's no doubt in my head around the hunger and the drive to do well for the shirt," Cattle added.

"We were just a bit clunky at times. Our backs have been executing really well on the wings, but I felt we threw a lot of missed passes."