CHRIS Stirling believes his Cornish Pirates are set to embark on a crucial month ahead – one which the New Zealander believes will help plot the club's course for the remainder of the season.

Having hit the halfway stage of their maiden Championship voyage in fifth position, the Pirates resume league activity with a testing trip to Moseley tomorrow (3pm).

It is the first of a handful of fixtures Stirling has targeted in a bid to ensure Cornwall's top club side achieve their initial aim of hitting the division's top eight – and with a place in the play-offs come the end of February.

"Moseley is the first cab on the rank for us," said Stirling, who will be back in harness this weekend having missed last week's trip to Leinster in the British & Irish Cup because of illness. "For us, it's crucial that we hit this second half of the season running.

"I believe in recent weeks we have made some big steps forward. At the same time, we've not quite reached some of our other markers and that is something we need to improve on between now and the New Year.

"For example, our scrum has really come together over the last few weeks, yet our line-out has dropped off a bit, which is a little disappointing. Ideally, you want your set-piece to be fully working, that way you can feed off it and cause the opposition real problems."

Certainly the Pirates posed plenty of problems for Gael Force and Leinster in the recent two-week B&I Cup break. However, results were somewhat mixed as Stirling's troops saw off the former at home 29-8, but then went down 12-10 at Leinster a week ago.

Although defeated at Donnybrook, it was not all 'doom and gloom' for Stirling who, having now viewed the DVD of the clash, believes his team should probably have made it two wins from two.

"Having seen the game several times, I can only echo what Ian [Davies] said afterwards. 'We should have won the game'," added Stirling. "As I've said, we are improving as a side, but we need to find that killer instinct. We did enough last week to have won that game, but we didn't.

"Over the second half of the season I want the boys to show a real hard-nosed attitude. I want them to dig deep when they have to and really grind out some victories. This next month or so is a big, big month for us and if we can come through it with a good haul of points, it will enable us to build even more and allow us to different things.

"Should we struggle, on the other hand, then we could really find ourselves in a dogfight with a whole number of other teams who want to get into that top eight. We want to try and avoid that scenario if we can, but like all the games in this division, nothing is given to you – you have to work hard for what you get."

With that very thought in mind, Stirling has warned the Pirates to expect a much stiffer Moseley challenge than that which they faced at Camborne back in September. On that occasion, the home side blew away their Birmingham-based rivals in a devastating opening spell, one which saw them lead 38-0 in the opening half-hour.

That kind of springboard is always likely to make the task at hand that little bit easier, but having looked back again at that very fixture, Stirling is duly cautious.

"We had a fantastic start to that game and Moseley didn't really know what hit them," admitted Stirling. "However, once they got themselves into the game a bit, it was pretty tight. We are under no illusions, Saturday will be a much tougher game, especially with it being up at their place.

"They [Moseley] are not only a very good side, but they like to play with a bit of width. They are in some respects a bit similar in style to Bedford, so we are going to have concentrate throughout and really work hard in our defence. As well as that, they have a very good front five, so again we are going to be tested in that department."

Ahead of the game, Stirling has made four changes to his side that faced Leinster. All of them come in the pack where Paul Andrew, Rod Labuschagne, Sam Betty and Blair Cowan all start. The men making way are Ryan Storer, Luke Collins, Matt Evans and Laurie McGlone.

Cornish Pirates: : R Cook; R McAtee, M Ireland, S Winn, N Jackson; J Bentley, G Cattle (capt); P Andrew, D Ward, C Rimmer; R Labuschagne, S Pammenter; S Betty, T Holmes, B Cowan. Replacements: R Storer, R Elloway, S Franklin, L Collins, J Doherty, R Jones, R Bright.