Pirates aim to use cup games as league springboard
Cornish Pirates coach Joe Walsh hopes his side's forthcoming Premiership Cup games sides can set up the rest of their Championship season.
Pirates travel to Exeter on Sunday before hosting Hartpury in their final pool match next week.
Having lost at home to Premiership side Gloucester last week Pirates have yet to win a cup game this season.
The cup break comes after a run of five wins in seven Championship matches that took the Penzance-based side up to sixth place in the second tier.
"It's been great to get the crowds in and it's been great to reignite some old rivalries and bring a new Premiership team down here that's never visited us before," Walsh told BBC Radio Cornwall.
"But in a way we could probably do without some of these games. For us the reality is we want to finish as high as possible in that Championship.
"When we get back into it we have nine, 10 really important games and our focus really has been how high on that table can we finish?
"Can we be competing for the top-three places after some of the close results we've had?
"What we want from these next two games is continued progress in those key areas we're working on and the golden one of coming out with no more injuries."
