Friday, August 16

Pre-season friendly at Polson Bridge

Cornish All Blacks 14

Redruth 25

THE Cornish All Blacks put in a spirited performance before falling to a 25-14 defeat at home to old rivals Redruth in their second pre-season friendly on Friday night.

The Reds arrived in North Cornwall with a near full-strength side, which included Holsworthy’s former Launceston fly-half Fraser Honey and former Budehaven School pupil Brad Janes, although Cornwall scrum-half Jack Oulton who hails from Delabole, was banned following his sending-off in the County Championship final at Twickenham.

While Redruth are an established National Two (South) outfit, the All Blacks were only promoted back to the South West Premier in April, one level below.

Their starting 15 included four new signings in the shape of prop Rhys Carpenter, flanker Chris Mcdonald, number eight Gary Gynn and full-back Eddie McGinley, while Alfie Lang was on the bench.

Although there was heavy rain throughout the day, a healthy sized crowd turned up to Polson Bridge to see the first meeting between the clubs for over three years.

As expected, Redruth dominated possession throughout the game but found an All Blacks defence — at times leaky last term — in fine form early on, typified by an excellent tackle by skipper Lloyd Duke.

However the visitors were looking threatening and took the lead on nine minutes as good work from the forwards saw an overlap on the right and prop Tommy Phillips had the simplest of finishes.

Honey kicked the extras.

When the All Blacks did get possession they made it count shortly after.

A long pass out to the right-wing saw good work by McGinley and Reuben Edwards end with a penalty awarded, which was then kicked deep into the Redruth 22.

From the resulting lineout, a driving maul was formed before Mcdonald showed his power to score from close range. Fly-half Glenn Coles had no problems with the kick to make it 7-7.

On 21 minutes, Redruth went back in front. Having started to the right hand side of the pitch, the ball was worked out towards the left before they came right back to where they started to force an overlap and Janes had the simplest finish in the right-hand corner. This time Honey put it well wide.

Redruth’s expansive passing stretched the All Blacks to the limit, although their defence was excellent, a third try arrived on 32 minutes as another overlap on the right-hand side was finished off by Honey, despite the best efforts of player/coach Ryan Westren on the line.

Honey failed with the conversion leaving the score at 17-7.

The Reds had a great chance to put the game firmly out of the battling All Blacks’ reach on the stroke of half-time when they had a penalty deep in the home 22. However, they were penalised at the breakdown allowing Coles to kick the ball out to end the opening 40 minutes.

The All Blacks needed a fast start after the interval but Redruth added a fourth try on 44 minutes as hooker Richard Brown span off a driving maul to crash over from ten metres. Once again the conversion was missed.

As the second-half progressed both teams took the chance to bring on their replacements which understandably slowed the game down, even if the visitors continued to enjoy vast amounts of possession.

Just after the hour replacement fly-half Richie Kevern slotted a penalty from straight in front of the posts to extend the lead to 25-7.

To the All Blacks’ credit they kept battling away and grabbed a second try with five minutes to go.

A Redruth lineout some 40 metres out evaded everyone, allowing Westren to run onto the loose ball and power over. Replacement fly-half Ben Hawke kicked the extras to bring an end to the scoring.

The All Blacks know that they’re unlikely to face anyone as good as Redruth in the coming months, so there was plenty to build on as Westren agreed.

He said: “There were a lot of positives to be taken, we didn’t win the game but that’s not the be all and end all, Redruth are an established National Two South side.

“We’ve been working hard all summer on our defence. We knew that we had to match them defensively because if we didn’t it’d have been a very long evening for us, but we showed up very well.

“When you play a team from the league above, you know you’re going to be deprived of possession a fair bit, but it worked out for us in that sense as we had to defend multiple phases which we generally did very well. We made them work very hard for their scores.

“It was nice to see what we’ve been working on for the last six weeks work in a match scenario, often once matches start people return to type, but it was great to see the boys put what we’ve been doing into practice.”

The All Blacks scored plenty of tries on their way to promotion last year and Westren admits that its the other side where their main focus is at present, along with their lineout.

He said: “We’ve naturally got a very good attacking side, our major thing to work on is always going to be to make sure our defence is up to speed with our attack.

“Another area needing attention from Friday is our lineout. These days they’re a complicated affair so it’ll take a while for some of the new guys to understand how we do it, but I’m sure come the first league game in a couple weeks time, it’ll be rectified.”

Westren was pleased with how his summer recruits went.

He said: “I thought all of the new guys had positive first run-outs at Polson. Eddie McGinley stepped back in and played like he’d been here a few years. He’s a bit different to what we’ve had.

“I also thought Gary Gynn was good. There are areas he needs to improve but his ability was there for everyone to see.”

Westren’s final words were for the Launceston supporters who turned up in their droves despite the rain.

He said: “Although it was played in horrible conditions, I thought it was a decent advert for rugby. It was great to see such a great crowd despite the adverse weather. It goes to show what great support we have as a club, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by the players, so thank you to everyone who turned up.”

The All Blacks’ final pre-season friendly is at St Ives next Saturday.

Cornish All Blacks — McGinley, Edwards, Crawford, Westren, Pearce, Coles, Mulberry; Bentham, J Duke, Carpenter, Goldsmith, Clarke, Mcdonald, L Duke (captain), Gynn

Replacements: Bartlett, Rowley, Parish, Stansfield, Tummon, Lang, Kneebone, Hawke.

Tries: Mcdonald, Westren

Convs: Coles, Hawke

Pens: N/A

Redruth — Shepherd, Janes, Simmons, Gilbert, Bonds, Honey, Stacey; Phillips, Brown, Tompsett, Pascoe, Hattam, Grubb, Stevens, Howe

Replacements: Jacques, Prisk, Simmonds, Barnes, Brassington, Kevern.

Tries: Phillips, Janes, Honey, Brown

Convs: Honey

Pens: Kevern