Following their recent convincing victory played away to London Scottish in this season’s Premiership Rugby Cup, full attention for the Cornish Pirates has since turned to the Championship’s league games for the 2023/24 season.

First up for the Pirates is a game at home on Friday evening (ko 7.30pm), when London Scottish will again be in opposition, and hopefully in front of a big crowd for the fixture under lights. In the injured absence of both club captain John Stevens and Kyle Moyle who stood in as skipper last time out, Alex Everett will this week have the honour of leading the Pirates for the first time.

Of several changes in the starting XV, Everett is selected at number 8, Josh King will partner Steele Barker in the second row, and in the front row props Lefty Zigiriadis and Matt Johnson are named. Dan John is selected at full-back, with Iwan Jenkins and Ruaridh Dawson forming the half-back pairing.

One player about to proudly make his 50th appearance for the club is centre Joe Elderkin.

Speaking ahead of Friday night’s encounter, Cornish Pirates’ joint head coach Alan Paver said:

“Firstly, the contest on Friday will be different psychologically and personnel wise to when we recently played London Scottish away in the Cup.

“They have some very useful and exciting young men in their squad, whilst for us we are looking forward to getting the league underway.   Yes, we will take confidence from our Cup win against them but, as always, will pay them the utmost respect and prepare as we normally do for an opening league game where a big crowd will hopefully get behind us.”

Also commenting reference Joe Elderkin about to reach his 50 games milestone for the club, Alan added:

“Although still a young man Joe has played a lot of rugby and since joining the Cornish Pirates has been a fantastic midfield performer who is getting better all the time. He has now established himself not only in our team but also as an outstanding performer in the league, so he deserves enormous credit.”

The Cornish Pirates full selection for Friday evening is as follows:

Cornish Pirates:   15 Dan John 14 Will Trewin 13 Ioan Evans 12 Joe Elderkin 11 Matt McNab 10 Iwan Jenkins 9 Ruaridh Dawson; 1 Lefty Zigiriadis 2 Morgan Nelson 3 Matt Johnson 4 Josh King 5 Steele Barker 6 Harry Dugmore 7 Will Gibson 8 Alex Everett (captain).

Replacements:   16 Rhys Williams 17 Jack Andrew 18 Fin Richardson 19 Josh Williams 20 Hugh Bokenham 21 Alex Schwarz 22 Tom Pittman 23 Arthur Relton.

Referee:   George Sellwood

Assistants:   Ian Bibey & Kevin Williams

Official 4:   Paul Box

PR/Coach:   Dean Richards

Match Day Sponsor:   Pure Vista

Match Ball Sponsor:   Alliance Disposables

Match Day Collection:   The Veterans Charity