THE CORNISH All Blacks made it four wins on the bounce as they grabbed a bonus point victory in Somerset.

Two tries in each half as well as a penalty from Dan Pearce allowed the visitors to fight back after letting in another early try and consolidate third place.

The All Blacks were unchanged from the 29-7 victory over Newent a week before although youngster Harry?Lightfoot was brought in on the bench for his debut first team appearance in place of Jordan Duke who has gone to South Africa for a couple of months.

North Petherton went into the game having won just five of their opening 15 games but took an early lead through a try, which came through the forwards.

The All Blacks were playing against the wind and slope in the opening 40 minutes against a determined home side, who are desperate to climb away from the bottom four.

However they did manage to score midway through the half, although there was an element of luck to it.

Their lineout went loose but fell into the hands of blindside-flanker Brandon Rowley, who managed to evade the tackle of a couple of home players before touching down from about ten-metres. Dan Pearce converted and the All Blacks had the lead.

The All Blacks were in control of the game but failed to add to their tally until right on half-time through skipper Lloyd?Duke.

After the forwards made good ground, giant prop Zac Cinnamond popped the ball off to the onrushing Duke, who crashed his way over from a few metres out.

Again Pearce converted and the visitors had a nine-point lead at the break.

The second-half saw the wind calm down a bit but the All Blacks scrum — so impressive in recent weeks — continued to dominate proceedings as they forced three turnovers from North Petherton put-ins.

An early penalty from Pearce from just to the right of the 22-metre line added to their lead although from there on in they failed to get past a resilient home defence.

Lightfoot was brought on in place of Rowley midway through the second-half and the All Blacks’ efforts were eventually awarded in the final ten minutes as they scored twice to secure the bonus point.

First, good work from the backs allowed the ball to get to Ben Hawke on the left-wing. Despite being half-tackled just a few metres from the North Petherton line, the Launceston backs pushed Hawke to form a maul. The ball somehow popped out, allowing fly-half Glenn Coles to pounce on the loose ball and run in unopposed for his first ever league try.

With just over five minutes to go and the result now secured, it was a case of whether the All Blacks could grab a fourth try and they managed it with two minutes remaining.

More solid work from the forwards allowed scrum-half Shaun?Crawford to shift the ball out towards the backs to outside-centre Ryan Westren who barged his way over from close range.

This time Pearce did convert as the All Blacks eased to a 29-5 win.

Duke said that they had to be pleased with the win after a succession of home games.

He said: “Going into the game we talked a lot that although we’ve won a lot of games recently, most of them have been at home, so it was a really good test for us and really pleasing to go away and win.

“They were a decent side. They made really good inroads with their forwards but so did we and we dominated the scrum, which meant they were always on the back foot. In the first-half we didn’t really adapt to the wind that well as we tried a number of passes which were taken by the wind, so we could have perhaps played a bit more conservatively. But it didn’t come back to bite us as we had a 14-5 lead.

“At half-time we were pretty pleased with the score considering we played against the elements, even though the wind did calm down after and made the elements less of a factor for them.

“After the break, we didn’t really look like scoring but we got there in the end and it’s great for the boys confidence that we got the bonus point. I was pleased with the way we stuck to the gameplan and came away with another bonus point win.

“I’d also like to thank the 30 odd supporters who came up as well as some of the seconds who came up and watched. Off the back of the last few weeks, people are hopefully wanting to watch us.

“There was a crowd there of less than a 100 and when we came out there was as much noise for us as for them.”

Duke was also quick to praise the performance of Lightfoot and believes that it’ll be the first of many appearances for the club.

He said: “Harry made his debut on Saturday and came through it really well. He came through our youth section and has also made a couple of appearances for the Cornwall under 20s as well as our seconds where he’s been one of the star performers. He came on in the second-half and impressed everyone with his energy and enthusiasm.”

Attention now quickly turns to this Saturday’s mouthwatering local derby against Okehampton, (2.30pm), in what will be the first league meeting between the clubs at Polson Bridge for a nymber of years.

The Okes, who beat them 26-20 at the beginning of October, are eighth in the table with eight wins and seven defeats from their 15 games so far although the recent poor weather has put pay to a couple of their fixtures, including last Saturday’s home game with Keynsham.

Duke admits that there’s plenty at stake, especially after what happened earlier in the season.

He said:?“On Saturday we know that we have a few wrongs to put right, a bit like against Newent in our last home game. At Newent we were well and truly beaten but at Okehampton we probably should have won if we had a better attitude and didn’t make so many uncharachteristic mistakes. That makes it even more important that we do the job this week.”

Duke admits that Okehampton have a number of strengths, including their set-piece.

He said:?“They had the best scrum we’ve faced all season so we’re playing against one of the better packs in the league.?Saying that, they’re a good all-round team with dangerous backs, although up there we probably made them look even better.

“Hopefully we can have the biggest crowd of the season against Okehampton and get the win. They’ll bring down a fair few and people always come out for the derby games, so we’re really looking forward to it.”