Cornish Pirates look to deepen Exeter's misery in cup

It is a derby that has been played for many years as rivals in English rugby's second tier, then as a friendly in pre-season and latterly in the Premiership Rugby Cup.

But Friday night's sell-out clash between Cornish Pirates and Exeter Chiefs takes on a new importance as both sides try and turn around bad starts to the season.

Exeter - twice Premiership title-winners and one-time champions of Europe since their promotion to the top flight in 2010 - travel to Cornwall on the back of their worst-ever run of Premiership results.

Exeter have lost all six of their league games this season, leading director of rugby Rob Baxter to focus on their upcoming cup matches as a chance to turn around their fortunes.

Meanwhile, Pirates - who finished a club-record second place in the Championship last season - have lost their last four games, the same number they managed across the entirety of their last campaign.

"We're both having, in our own contexts, parallel seasons," Pirates joint-head coach Gavin Cattle tells BBC Radio Cornwall.

"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.

"It's a big ask for our lads, but what I've seen this week is very encouraging in terms of the application.

"Any ego wants to do well against a Premiership team, so the boys will be pretty pumped for that."

Friday will be the second competitive fixture between the two sides since Championship clubs were invited into the Premiership Rugby Cup last season.

Pirates were beaten 38-13 at Sandy Park last September and defeated 46-24 at the same venue in a pre-season game in late August this year.

You have to go back to February 2010 for the last time Pirates beat Exeter in a competitive game when a 34-17 win at Camborne helped them top the group in the British and Irish Cup.

Pirates would go on to win the trophy that year while Exeter overcame Bristol over two legs to win the Championship play-off final and their place in the top flight.

It is 17 years since Exeter were beaten by their Cornish rivals in a league game - a 30-23 reverse in October 2007 that came just a few months after the Pirates had beaten the Chiefs 19-16 in the National Trophy final at Twickenham.

"Over the years it's been tough there," Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter tells BBC Radio Devon.

"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.

"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

"Then we slowly turned that tide and so this will be a good challenge as well."

With Exeter's poor run of form in the Premiership, the relatively local trip to Cornwall presents a big chance for Baxter's side to try and get back to winning ways against a struggling team from the league below.

"It'll be a challenge for us particularly because of where we are at the moment," he added. "But at the same time sport is what it is and you've got to get on with it.

"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'.

"It doesn't take long memory to to know that you can turn round things fairly quickly if you get things right.

"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."

It is the second season of the Premiership Rugby Cup in its current format of teams from the top two tiers facing one another.

For the sides in the Championship it represents a chance not only to bring in a big crowd and some top-flight sparkle - Friday's game at the Mennaye Field is sold out - but also the chance of an upset.

Last season, Championship winners Ealing made the semi-finals as they beat Northampton Saints and Bristol Bears in the pool stage, Coventry overcame Saracens and drew with Harlequins while Jersey Reds defeated Bath in their penultimate game before going bust.

"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," says Cattle.

"You've got that parochialism like Cornwall and Devon, it brings all back what it used to be like when I was playing.

"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."