After thirty one league and cup games a return of fifth place in the table, a whopping forty nine points behind the champions, and with only two thirds of the matches won hardly represents the form of an aspirational Premiership side.

It all started so brightly for the Pirates who, buoyed by a memorable pre-season performance against Leicester Tigers headed up to Polson Bridge for the curtain-raiser on September 1st. In truth the match posed more questions for then Head Coach Jim McKay than it answered but a win was a win and there were much bigger fish to fry as Northampton Saints came to town just one week later. In front of a crowd of almost 6,500 the Pirates season was defined in the ten minutes after the interval as Saints upped their game and the home side let slip a 19-10 lead, going down in the end 26-35 despite late heroics from Tim Cowley.

This inability to push home and advantage against the better teams in the league was to haunt the Pirates throughout the campaign whilst the teams they were expected to beat caused problems every time concentration levels dropped. The last gasp win at Coventry was an abject performance and the shipping of twenty points at home to Pertemps Bees coupled with four tries conceded at Newbury was a concern. When the team did front up against Exeter Chiefs at Camborne in early October they won a pulsating contest 30-23 courtesy of Jimmy Moore`s try on the last play of the match but the cracks were merely being papered over as a greatly revamped squad struggled to gel, a trio of loan signings from Newcastle failed to spark, and Simon Whatling and then Joe Beardshaw were lost to season-long injuries.

Continued On The Press Gang Website >>>>

*First published in the Cornishman/West Briton/Cornish Guardian newspapers. Reproduced by kind permission.

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