The Cornish Pirates are next in action this coming Saturday 23^rd November when, for their third Premiership Cup game in Pool E of the competition, they will play Hartpury away (ko 2.30pm).

Both teams will be seeking a first win in the Cup this year, Hartpury having to date lost 31-26 at home to Gloucester in their opener and then 54-3 away to Exeter Chiefs. As for the Cornish Pirates, they lost 68-7 at home to the Chiefs and then narrowly 36-28 away to Gloucester.

For the Pirates there are five changes in their starting line-up from the one that ran out against the ‘Cherry & Whites’ at Kingsholm. Fly-half Iwan Jenkins and hooker Sol Moody – a two tries scorer against Gloucester – will make their first starts of the season, whilst Arthur Relton returns on the wing in place of Matt McNab who, along with Charlie McCaig, form a fresh centre partnership.

Commenting ahead of this weekend’s challenge, Cornish Pirates’ joint head coach Gavin Cattle has said:

“Both Hartpury and us have played two games each against Premiership sides, which has helped provide a good measuring stick.

“Facing Exeter Chiefs felt like we were playing a full-fledged Premiership side, and against decent opposition at Gloucester it pleasingly proved a closely fought contest.

“We said ahead of the block of games that we wanted to emerge from them with everyone having an even amount of game time and, from our perspective, that’s our plan again for this week. We are still in the process of learning about our present group of gifted players, who need exposure, and that is what we are giving them.”

The Cornish Pirates full selection for Saturday is as follows:

Cornish Pirates:   15 Will Trewin 14 Robin Wedlake 13 Matt McNab 12 Charlie McCaig 11 Arthur Relton 10 Iwan Jenkins 9 Cam Jones; 1 Billy Young 2 Sol Moody 3 James French 4 Charlie Rice 5 Eoin O’Connor 6 Josh King 7 Will Gibson 8 Hugh Bokenham (captain).

Replacements:   16 Harry Hocking 17 Oisin Michel 18 Jay Tyack 19 Matt Cannon 20 Tomi Agbongbon 21 Dan Hiscocks 22 Bruce Houston 23 Iwan Price-Thomas.