Cattle rues missed chances in Pirates' Exeter loss

Tom Georgiou's try saw Pirates trail by just three points at half-time

Cornish Pirates joint-head coach Gavin Cattle says his side could have done better in their 43-7 Premiership Rugby Cup loss at Exeter.

The Pirates trailed 10-7 at half-time before conceding six unanswered second-half tries as Chiefs winger Paul Brown-Bampoe crossed four times.

It was a fifth loss out of five cup matches this season for the Championship side, who face league rivals Hartpury in their final pool game next week.

"I think there were some big performances," Cattle told BBC Radio Cornwall.

"I just thought in that first half we had the elements and I thought we dictated field position, just didn't convert the pressure into points.

"The boys got ripped into a little bit at half-time but it wasn't an effort thing, it was more of an execution thing.

"You know against a team like Exeter if you don't execute in that final third, you're going to come a cropper second half, and their pressure told in that second half."

Pirates' injury-hit squad was further depleted with Iwan Jenkins and Tomi Agbongbon both going off with head knocks.

Cattle says he will look to try to bolster his squad in the coming week with most of his dual-registered players being recalled by their Premiership parent clubs.

"I don't think it's a secret that we're struggling a little bit with injuries so it'll be another week where we need to get through this Premiership Cup to be honest because we need a bit of time to recoup and regenerate.

"But we look at this Premiership Cup period and the couple of weeks off that we want to grow as a team.

"There's a lot of new faces in there, it feels like we have to do another pre-season to be honest.

"We're trying to keep our eye on the bigger picture but it doesn't help when the injury list is piling up a little bit. We'll do what's controllable and we'll do our best to get out of the situation."