National League Three South West

Bromsgrove 22

Cornish All Blacks 27

THE Cornish All Blacks survived a late onslaught from bottom of the table Bromsgrove to win 27-22 and keep their own hopes of staying in National League Three South West alive.

Going into the Christmas break, the All Blacks had won just twice all season and were eleven points from safety.

However, derby victories over Ivybridge and Camborne and Saturday’s success at Bromsgrove means they are just four points off Lydney who are in the final position of safety, albeit they have two games in-hand.

The All Blacks made three changes for the trip to Worcestershire, including a new half-back partnership of Sam Stevens and new signing Greg Loydall.

Redruth loanee Stevens returned after missing last Saturday’s victory over Camborne with Tom Sandercock moving to inside-centre, while Loydall, who is in the Navy, came in for his debut with 17-year-old Reuben Edwards returning to the right-wing.

Dom Theobald was also given a start on the left wing in place of Sam Snell who wasn’t in the matchday squad.

The All Blacks’ scrum came to the fore last week and again they were in an uncompromising mood.

After piling on the pressure, the referee awarded the All Blacks a penalty try, which was converted by Martin Kneebone to give them a 7-0 lead.

Both teams exchanged penalties before Bromsgrove’s second row Sam Knott was red-carded for a high tackle midway through the first-half.

To make matters even worse for the home side, the All Blacks scored their second try from the resulting lineout as number eight Barrie-John Chapman bulldozed his way over for his second touchdown in as many games.

Again Kneebone’s conversion was successful to extend the lead to 17-3 and that was how it stayed until half-time.

While things were completely plain sailing in the opening 40 minutes, the All Blacks had to show all of their defensive skills in the second-half as Kneebone, Lloyd Duke, Stevens and Loydall all spent time in the sin-bin.

With nothing to lose, Bromsgrove piled forward and reduced the arrears with a penalty try from stand-in kicker James Upton.

With just a converted try between the two sides and with 14 men for long spells, the All Blacks needed a moment of magic and it came from their player/coach Ryan Westren.

The former Cornish Pirates and London Scottish centre picked up the ball inside his own 22, ran past a number of home defenders before passing to Sandercock to go over in front of the posts.

Again Kneebone converted and the lead was back to 14 points.

The home side, who were still feeling a sense of injustice at having to play with 14 men, refused to lie down and scored tries through flankers Ed Garbutt and Tom Wilson.

However one of the conversions was missed giving Launceston a two-point cushion.

That lead was extended to five through a Loydall penalty before they defended for their lives in the last few minutes to keep their survival hopes alive and push Bromsgrove ever closer to the drop.

Cornish All Blacks director of rugby Jimmy Tucker was delighted with the win and their points haul throughout January.

Tucker said: “It was a pretty satisfying win but the most important thing for us is that we’ve had a really good January which was absolutely crucial if we wanted to stay up.

“In the first-half we were excellent but they had a red card and then the referee tried to match it up as the game went on. We lost all of our momentum and it became very stop start and that’s not what we needed.

“We then led 24-10 but we didn’t put the game to bed and it nearly cost us but we won the game and that’s the main thing, although we did have to defend courageously at the end and I was very pleased with how we did that.”

While Tucker was delighted with the win, he most certainly wasn’t pleased with the performance of the referee and acknowledged that the sending off of Knott was unjust.

Tucker said: “There player shouldn’t have been red carded. It was a clumsy high tackle but he was about 6ft 10 and the player he hit was about a foot shorter than him so it was very unfair.

“Then in the second-half we were penalised but none of the yellow cards were cynical in the slightest. Martin Kneebone was carded for a supposed deliberate knock-on but he was just trying to intercept a pass while Lloyd was carded for an offside. I can’t remember exactly what the other two were done but none of it was malicious and it made it difficult.”

Again the Cornish All Blacks’ scrum was pivotal at Finstrall Park, but Tucker believes that Westren was man of the match.

Tucker added: “Ryan was definitely our best player. He led by example and did a brilliant run to set up Tom for our third try. It was like the Ryan of old and I hope we can see a bit more of it over the rest of the season.

“Greg also performed solidly for us. He’s another Navy boy and is friends with Chris McDonald. He came along to training and did well so we gave him a chance and he took it.”

This weekend sees another reserve date before a second consecutive local derby at Polson Bridge against mid-table Newton Abbot.

Tucker continued: “Although it’d have been nice to continue or momentum from January we knew that we had this weekend off. We’ll continue to train hard on Tuesday and Thursday this week and next, but having Saturday off gives the players a chance to freshen up both physically and mentally ahead of the rest of the season.”

Cornish All Blacks:

Bentham, Bulut, Parsons, Williams, Duke J, Duke L, McDonald, Chapman; Stevens, Loydall, Theobald, Sandercock, Westren, Edwards, Kneebone

Subs: Thomas, Merritt, Faamatuainu

Tries: Penalty try, Chapman, Sandercock

Convs: Kneebone 3

Pens: Kneebone, Loydall