Cattle encouraged by Cornish Pirates preparations

Gavin Cattle could not hide his delight at his side's win at Coventry on Saturday

Cornish Pirates joint-head coach Gavin Cattle says the club are much better placed to assemble a squad than they were this time last season.

Pirates were taken over by a local consortium in January, having seen long-term benefactor Sir Richard "Dicky" Evans' funding run out at the end of 2024.

The club have already secured the signings of a number of players from the current squad, with fly-half Bruce Houston being the highest-profile departure as he heads to France.

"We're creating a springboard for boys to go to pastures new where they can earn a bigger living or a better opportunity at a higher level," Cattle told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"We're in a far better position than we were last year in terms of timelines and numbers of boys in terms of retention.

"The club's done extremely well to give us this opportunity to go out a bit earlier, and again we're cutting our cloth to what the club needs," he added.

"Ideally we'd be signing people on two or three-year deals, but we'll take it step by step.

"Let's see what's happening RFU-wise and tier two-wise, let's let that settle, and I think we've just got to keep growing as a club."

Coventry win extends good form

Fifth-placed Cornish Pirates are nine points off second-placed Bedford with four games to go

Cattle's comments came after a 21-14 win at fourth-placed Coventry - Pirates' fifth win in six matches.

Tries from Arthur Relton and Matt Pritchard put Pirates 14-0 up with five minutes of the first half to go at Butts Park Arena before Ryan Hutler crossed for the hosts just before the break.

Dan Green crossed 10 minutes after the interval to level the scores before Jack Forsythe's decisive 58th-minute try for the Cornish side.

The win keeps Pirates in fifth place in the Championship, closing the gap to fourth-placed Coventry to two points.

"Coventry are above us in the table, so we knew it would be a tough slog; it always is coming here," said Cattle.

"I thought we controlled the collision quite well; we were quite dominant in that area, which gave us a bit of time.

"The attitude was there and bags today. We needed to step up, especially defensively.

"All you can ask for the boys is to front up; they certainly fronted up."