Cambridge score five tries in 64-35 RFU Championship defeat at Cornish Pirates

Despite scoring five converted tries, all that Cambridge had to show from their long trip to Cornish Pirates on Sunday was a try bonus point.

Will Glister (2), Morgan Veness, Ben Brownlie and Ewan Baker all dotted down for the visitors, but the hosting Pirates doubled Cambridge’s return of tries to run out 64-35 winners at The Mennaye.

Reflecting on the encounter in Cornwall, Cambridge’s forwards coach Neil Harris told the Jacko Podcast: “At half-time we were in the game but a couple of big moments didn’t go our way just before the half.

“Against these sides – they’re full time, they’ve got resources and they’re very fit – you just can’t not back up your positive actions.

“We’ve just spoke in the group – we’re working really, really hard to score tries and then we’re not winning the next 30 seconds to a minute. We almost undo all of our work.

“But the boys’ effort at the end, I’m really proud at how with five minutes to go we’ve scored twice.

“We’ve come here and scored 33 points, it’s superb. We’ve just got to look at what we’re doing on the other side of the ball.”

While Cambridge remain bottom of the RFU Championship standings and are three points from safety, the Pirates are fifth.

And Harris felt that his side were given a lesson in the standards required to pick up positive results at the level.

He added: “Credit to Cornish Pirates, they won the kick battle and they were very clinical after they scored.

“They managed to turn positives into more positives, which is something that we’ve spoken about a lot this year as a group.

“I don’t think we did it particularly well. If you score tries you’ve got to try to back it up with another positive effort and again, that’s where we fell a little bit short.”

Cambridge will return to action on 20 April when they travel to face seventh-placed Nottingham.