The button to restart rugby action at the Mennaye Field is to be pushed again this coming weekend, when on Saturday the Cornish Pirates will extend a warm welcome to cross-Tamar opponents from Plymouth Albion.

For what will be an important pre-season ‘friendly’ (ko 2.30pm), Saturday’s match should provide a real contest, as the Devon side, who finished 5^th in National One last season, are ambitious to make a ‘sooner rather than later’ return to Championship rugby. We wish them well, as former contests between the two sides provided intense rivalry enjoyed by players and supporters alike.

The Cornish Pirates have listed several of their new faces, including in the starting line-up fly-half Tom Pittman and centre Ioan Evans. Other summer arrivals are named on the bench, from where two Royal Navy players who have been training with the Pirates during the period, utility back Jordan Gott and hooker Rhys Williams, are also likely to feature.

Looking both back to pre-season and forward to Saturday’s match, Cornish Pirates’ joint head coach Gavin Cattle has commented:

“The camaraderie developed in our squad by the end of our first two phases in pre-season is a massive thing. They have proved themselves to be good bunch of lads, so it’ll be good to get them up and running and to witness where we are at.

“We will be able to introduce a few concepts and test them under full pressure, plus it will be a little different whereby playing a National One team we will have to adapt to the new tackle height laws expectation.

“Having said that, it is still full contact against an opposition team who we might not have played against for a while, but who are sure to be able and tough opponents, keen to test themselves against a Championship side.”

15. Kyle Moyle

14. Arthur Relton

13. Ioan Evans

12. Joe Elderkin

11. Will Trewin

10. Tom Pittman

9. Ruaridh Dawson

1. Jack Andrew

2. Morgan Nelson

3. Marlen Walker

4. Cory Teague

5. Will Britton

6. Ben Grubb

7. Will Gibson

8. John Stevens ©

16. Rhys Williams 17. Lefty Zigiriadis 18. Fin Richardson 19. Josh Williams 20. Harry Dugmore 21. Alex Schwarz 22. Iwan Jenkins 23. Dan John 24. Matt McNab 25. Frankie Nowell 26. Jordan Gott