Cornish Pirates seek to compound Exeter’s difficulties in cup competition

In August, Exeter defeated Cornish Pirates 46-24 during a pre-season friendly encounter at Sandy Park. This derby has a long history, with the teams competing for years as rivals in English rugby’s second division, then in pre-season friendlies, and more recently in the Premiership Rugby Cup. However, Friday night’s sold-out match between Cornish Pirates and Exeter Chiefs carries heightened significance, as both teams are aiming to reverse their poor starts to the current season. Exeter, who have secured two Premiership titles and one European championship since their promotion to the top tier in 2010, will journey to Cornwall following their most unfavorable streak of Premiership outcomes to date. Having suffered defeats in all six of their league fixtures this season, Exeter’s director of rugby, Rob Baxter, is now prioritizing their forthcoming cup games as an opportunity to improve their performance. Concurrently, the Pirates, who achieved a club-best second-place finish in the Championship last season, have experienced four consecutive losses, matching their total number of defeats throughout their entire previous campaign. Pirates joint-head coach Gavin Cattle informed BBC Radio Cornwall, “We’re both having, in our own contexts, parallel seasons.” He added, “I have no doubt knowing Rob that he’ll be picking a very strong team just to get the ball rolling their end with their systems and processes.” Cattle continued, “It’s a big ask for our lads, but what I’ve seen this week is very encouraging in terms of the application.” He concluded, “Any ego wants to do well against a Premiership team, so the boys will be pretty pumped for that.” Exeter’s most recent competitive victory against the Cornish Pirates in Cornwall occurred in February 2010. This Friday’s match will mark the second competitive encounter between the two teams since Championship clubs were included in the Premiership Rugby Cup last season. The Pirates previously suffered a 38-13 loss at Sandy Park last September, and a 46-24 defeat at the same location in a pre-season fixture in late August of this year. The last occasion the Pirates secured a competitive win against Exeter was in February 2010, with a 34-17 triumph at Camborne contributing to their group victory in the British and Irish Cup. That year, the Pirates proceeded to claim the trophy, while Exeter defeated Bristol across two legs to win the Championship play-off final and earn their promotion to the top flight. Seventeen years have passed since Exeter last lost to their Cornish rivals in a league match, a 30-23 defeat in October 2007, which followed just months after the Pirates had overcome the Chiefs 19-16 in the National Trophy final at Twickenham. Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter informed BBC Radio Devon, “Over the years it’s been tough there.” He continued, “I’ve played in a few wins and I’ve played in a few losses myself, and I’ve coached some wins and I’ve coached some losses.” Baxter added, “We always really celebrated those wins because they were big wins when we were both in the Championship – the Cornish Pirates were a good side, probably funded beyond us for quite a while.” He concluded, “Then we slowly turned that tide and so this will be a good challenge as well.” Given Exeter’s current poor performance in the Premiership, the relatively short journey to Cornwall offers a significant opportunity for Baxter’s team to regain their winning momentum against a struggling opponent from the league below. He further stated, “It’ll be a challenge for us particularly because of where we are at the moment.” Baxter continued, “But at the same time sport is what it is and you’ve got to get on with it.” He expressed, “I’m still pretty positive and pretty hopeful, that myself and some of the players and coaches will look back on this five or six week period, and I’m not going to say look on it with fondness because there’s nothing to look back on with fondness, but we’ll look back on it and go ‘remember that, we came through it’.” Baxter remarked, “It doesn’t take long memory to to know that you can turn round things fairly quickly if you get things right.” He concluded, “Sometimes you have to work through these things right here and now and they don’t always result in victories, but you have to get yourself back on the front foot and on a development pathway and that’s what we’re going to aim to do.” Both Cornish Pirates and Exeter have secured only one competitive victory out of their 11 matches played this season. This marks the second season of the Premiership Rugby Cup in its current structure, which involves teams from the top two divisions competing against each other. For Championship clubs, it offers an opportunity not only to attract a large audience and experience some top-tier excitement – Friday’s match at the Mennaye Field is sold out – but also the possibility of causing an upset. In the previous season, Championship champions Ealing advanced to the semi-finals after defeating Northampton Saints and Bristol Bears during the pool stage. Coventry triumphed over Saracens and achieved a draw with Harlequins, while Jersey Reds secured a victory against Bath in their second-to-last match before ceasing operations. Cattle stated, “It goes down to the traditional sort of competition – you look at the FA Cup when you get a lower team playing a higher team.” He added, “You’ve got that parochialism like Cornwall and Devon, it brings all back what it used to be like when I was playing.” Cattle concluded, “Those traditional competitions are always good because you’re pitching yourself against the best and there’s a bit of local sort of pride at stake.”