Cornish Pirates joint-head coach Gavin Cattle says his side are not as bad as their 73-40 defeat at Coventry would suggest.

Pirates conceded 11 tries as they let in a club-record amount of points in a Champ fixture, four more than in their record 69-8 loss to Worcester Warriors in April 2015.

Pirates were hampered by centre Joe Elderkin being injured in the warm-up.

They had fly-half Arwel Robson and replacement forward Matt Cannon yellow carded within three minutes of one another early in the second half as they conceded five tries in a 13-minute period surrounding the duo entering the sin bin.

“It’s never nice to see a scoreline like that,” Cattle told BBC Radio Cornwall.

“There was obviously a pivotal point in the two yellow cards, I think that’s where the game escaped us and then we were trying to pull a rabbit out of the hat in the sense of just playing from everywhere.

“Then we fell foul of like a couple of loose passes and that just widened the gap, which obviously you’ve seen the heavy scoreline.”

Pirates were in the game at the break, trailing 33-26 in what had been an entertaining first half as both sides secured try-scoring bonus points.

But, having lost Elderkin’s midfield partner Chester Ribbons late in the week, Pirates went into the game with Josh Radcliffe moving into midfield to partner Harry Ascherl and youngster Finn Love filling in on the wing.

Dan Hiscocks gave Pirates a 10th-minute lead, but they were 33-7 down after 27 minutes before Milo Hallam Alessandro Heaney and Ascherl crossed in the final 20 minutes of the half to give them hope.

But the two yellow cards ended the game as a contest and Pirates could only respond through Matt Pritchard and Jamie Clark late in the second half.

“The back line, if you looked at it, maybe lacked a little cohesion from 13 outwards,” added Cattle.

“But those boys did the best they could, they’re learning on the job and that’s part of the process.

“It’s only round two and you’re never as bad as you think you are in these results.

“I know the scoreboard looks awful there, but there were some promising moments especially that spell in the first half where we really battled and got back in the game.

“But there’s some big learnings on there from the kick game to inconsistency at the collision, it’s something that we’ll go back to the drawing board.”