ANDY Robinson’s comments about the “unprofessional” facilities used by the Cornish Pirates motivated the team for Sunday’s game – according to skipper Chris Morgan.
Bristol’s director of rugby, who has previously been head coach of England and Scotland, described the Mennaye as the worst ground in the Greene King IPA Championship during a midweek press conference.
Robinson questioned the standard of the stadium and pitch in the professional era of rugby.
Speaking after Sunday’s famous win, Morgan told the Packet they had used his words as motivation.
Morgan said: “We took it more of a dig at ourselves and undermining our professionalism and that spurred us on.
“The response put in by the guys was brilliant and just what we wanted.
“The boys dug in and when you consider the strength of players they have, to raise our game to the level we did was fantastic.”
Former England and Scotland head coach Andy Robinson had a pop at the facilities used by the Pirates ahead of his Bristol side's clash at the Mennaye on Sunday.
Sunday’s match completed a difficult three rounds of fixtures for the Pirates with ties away at Worcester and London Scottish along with Bristol.
With these games now completed, Morgan said the team have learnt a lot about themselves from their performances.
He said: “We got blown away by Worcester, put in a lot of effort against London Scottish for no reward and now have put in a good performance against Bristol, so it shows how we are doing.
“This season was about finding our identity while developing into a top half team.
“Now we starting to think about next season and hopefully we can keep this group of players here and move further up the league and compete with the top teams.”
Next up for the Cornishmen is a trip to Moseley on Saturday.
Their record is poor at Billesley Common, but Morgan says beating Bristol will give them huge confidence.
“We need to keep the belief and take that to Moseley,” the flanker said.
“Things get forgotten about in the Championship very quickly and you can go from being a hero one week to public enemy number one the following week.
“But we know now we can beat a side like Bristol and hopefully we can build from that.”
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