IAN Davies says he wants his young Cornish Pirates side to learn from their 31-30 loss to Doncaster Knights on Saturday.

The Mennaye Field outfit led by 20 points with 11 minutes left, but conceded three tries to see a victory snatched away.

Reflecting on the defeat, the club’s director of rugby admitted it was tough to take but he feels it will give the side something to learn from.

Davies said: “There are guys in our squad like Laurence [May], Will [Carrick Smith] and Joel [Conlon] who are still aged 22 or under and they won’t have been in a situation like that before.

“Doncaster had experience guys on the bench who they were able to bring on and they made more of an impact than the players from our bench did.

“We did the same against Cross Keys when they were well ahead of us but we turned it around with our replacements.

“There are a lot of young guys in our squad and they will learn from this loss.”

With the defeat, the Pirates must now beat Bedford Blues on Saturday in their final pool game and hope for results to go their way in order to make the quarter finals.

Looking ahead to the important match, Davies said: “It is going to be difficult and we don’t have a good record at Bedford, which makes life harder for us.

“We also have to wait on other results coming in for us too which is not ideal, but we have to get back on the horse and move forward.”