Saturday, March 10

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Cornish All Blacks 49

Clevedon 12

THE Cornish All Blacks put in a dominant first-half performance to ease past bottom side Clevedon 49-12 at Polson Bridge on Saturday.

The visitors arrived in Cornwall with just two wins to their name all season and were staring down the barrel at another heavy away defeat when Jimmy Tucker’s men led 42-5 at half-time.

However the North Somerset club regrouped impressively to draw the second-half 7-7 and slightly take the edge off an impressive opening 40 minutes from the All Blacks, who maintain their four-point cushion over Newent in the battle to finish third.

After not playing since the 15-15 draw with Bideford on February 17, the home side made three changes in personnel with plenty of players being drafted into different positions.

In the forwards, hooker Harry Lightfoot made his first league start instead of Levent Bulut while second-row Dan Goldsmith replaced the injured number eight Torin Clarke, which saw Jake Crabb move to blindside-flanker and Brandon Rowley to number eight.

In the backs, Cornwall Under 20s fly-half Reuben Edwards was moved off the wing to fill the number ten shirt with Ben Hawke moving to full-back.

Martin Kneebone moved to the left-wing to take over Edwards’ shirt with Tom Sandercock coming in for the club’s top try scorer Dan Pearce, who was on the bench.

Despite the changes, it didn’t take the All Blacks long to get into their stride as they scored twice inside the opening ten minutes.

First, an excellent break from inside-centre Jon Dawe allowed him to offload to the onrushing Lloyd Duke. Still 15 metres out, Duke had the option of passing to his team-mates, however he feigned a pass and managed to clamber to the line.

Anyone who was late arriving were missing some excellent rugby and the home side were 14-0 up soon after as tighthead-prop Zac Cinnamond barged his way over from close-range after multiple phases. Again Hawke had the easiest of conversions.

While Clevedon’s defence was looking shaky, in attack they had a couple of dangerous players and they came to the fore in the 12th minute. From a driving maul, Cameron Maslen and Dave Burns combined to produce an overlap for full-back Tom Willis to score. The try went unconverted but they were back in the game.

The All Blacks needed to settle down and they scored almost immediately.

A great break down the right-hand side involving player/coach Ryan Westren and Sandercock was stopped just a couple of metres out before a penalty was awarded to the home side.

From the resultant move, the visiting defence was again powerless to stop Cinnamond from barging his way over from just three metres out. Hawke again slotted the conversion and the All Blacks had a 16-point advantage within the opening quarter of the game.

There was a slight lull for the next ten minutes but it didn’t take Westren long to show his value to the team.

After a typically abrasive run, he produced an excellent offload as he fell to the ground to give Crabb the easiest of run-ins from a few yards out.

While that try was simple, the next was all of the making of Hawke. Given the chance to counter from just inside the Clevedon half, the full-back used his pace and strength to glide past the Somerset side’s defence to score. Again he converted.

There was one further try before the break as second-row Marc Williams took advantage of some slack defending to make it 40-5. Hawke made it six successful kicks for the afternoon as the Cornishmen went into the break in a commanding position.

With the game effectively over at the break, the second-half was never likely to be as entertaining and so it proved as Clevedon showed plenty of resilience.

The All Blacks failed to provide much of a cutting edge although Duke should have done better after scampering down the blindside and Hawke’s second try of the afternoon was ruled out by the touch judge after his foot was adjudged to have touched the line.

The first try of the second-half came on 72 minutes as second-row Olly Jones was forced over by a big driving maul. This time fly-half, Adam Coles had no problems in adding the extras.

With time running out, prop Chae Jenkins was given his league debut for the All Blacks and it wasn’t long before he was celebrating a try as a first-team player.

From a short lineout taken by Bulut, number eight Brandon Rowley had the simple task of crossing the line. Hawke slotted an excellent kick to cap off a perfect afternoon’s work and give the All Blacks a routine 49-12 victory.

Skipper, Duke was delighted to get back to winning ways after a difficult February.

He said: “In the week we talked about needing to put in a performance and in the first 50 minutes everything we did was extremely clinical, which is really pleasing and everything we tried seemed to come off.

“To score 42 points in the first-half was absolutely brilliant and although we couldn’t carry it on, Saturday was exactly what we asked from the players.

“We were adamant at half-time that we wanted to produce that type of performance from the first-half again and make sure it wasn’t like 60-10, but we’ve got to give Clevedon plenty of credit for the second-half performance. It put a slight dampener on things but we can’t complain too much. We’re just happy to win the game and win it convincingly.”

Duke also had some high praise for Hawke and Cinnamond who contributed 29 points between them.

He said: “Ben Hawke played really well and for him to get 100% on his kicks was excellent. I also thought that Zac produced his best performance in terms of carrying since he came to play for us. He really stood up. Harry Lightfoot also made his starting debut and he can certainly be pleased with his performance while Chae (Jenkins) also came off the bench and you can tell he’s got a good future ahead of him. Saying that, I thought everyone played pretty well so we’re looking forward to the game at Bridgwater & Albion on Saturday now.”

The game in Somerset, which was postponed on March 3 due to the weather, will provide a stern test for the All Blacks.

They should have been out of sight in the first-half in November but were grateful for a late knock-on close to their own line to save them in the 19-13 victory.

Duke admits that it’ll be a tough encounter, especially after Albion lost 29-7 at relegation-threatened Matson last weekend.

He said: “They’re a good mid-table team and they have a pretty impressive home record so it’s not going to be easy. They were good all around the park down at our place but we’ll look to use our set-piece and try to make sure we step up our performance again. Newent won again and we invite the challenge they’re giving us in the battle for third, so there’ll be letting up from us now until the end of the season.”

Kick-off at College Way is at 1pm.

Cornish All Blacks —

Hawke, Sandercock, Westren, J Dawe, Kneebone, Edwards, Crawford; Bentham, Lightfoot, Z Cinnamond, Williams, Goldsmith, Crabb, L Duke (captain), Rowley

Replacements: Jenkins, Bulut, Pearce

Tries: L Duke, Z Cinnamond 2, Crabb, Hawke, Williams, Rowley

Convs: Hawke 7

Pens: N/A

Clevedon —

Willis, R Hervey, Tucker, Maslen, Burns, Coles, Thie; Largenton, Honour (captain), Bosley, Jones, Trollope, Crew, Taylor, Foley

Replacements: D Williams, J Williams, J Hervey

Tries: Willis, Jones

Conv: Coles

Pens: N/A

Cornish All Blacks’ man-of-the-match: Ben Hawke