Saturday, November 10

Tribute Cornwall Cup (quarter-final)

St Ives 40

Cornish All Blacks 33

A POOR first-half display cost the Cornish All Blacks dear as their hopes of a league and cup double went up in smoke at St Ives on Saturday as they fell to a 40-33 defeat against the defending champions at Alexandra Road.

The All Blacks went into the game unbeaten since September 22 and prevailed by the same scoreline at the same ground earlier in the season after an astonishing comeback.

However the Hakes, who are enjoying a solid season since promotion to Tribute South West One (West), were out for revenge and led 33-12 at the break.

Although the All Blacks scored 21 unanswered points to make the scoreline respectable, it was their fellow Cornishmen who moved into the last four.

Coaches Ryan Westren and Ian Goldsmith knew that the home side had a sizeable pack and chose to beef up their forward line with a number of positional changes.

Rikki Bentham returned at loosehead-prop after being rested at Cullompton in place of Chae Jenkins in the only change. However Andy Knight moved to tighthead-prop, Torin Clarke moved to the second-row and Sam Snell, who deputised for Bentham at loosehead-prop at Cullompton, was chosen to play at blindside-flanker.

In the backs, Ben Hawke made his first appearance of the season on the left-wing in place of Martin Kneebone who was at a wedding.

Although St Ives dominated the opening 40 minutes, the All Blacks took the lead inside two minutes. From his own lineout 30 metres out, hooker Levent Bulut received the ball and ran down the blindside before passing to the onrushing Snell, who had no-one near him to score from ten metres.

From the kick-off, the Hakes gathered possession and put together five or six phases. Winger Joe Parma stationed himself at fly-half from the ruck and broke through some flimsy tackling to score. Full-back Dan Magee added the extras.

Fifteen minutes in and St Ives added a second try. Lock Jamie Prisk went on a rampage from halfway before passing to skipper Tom Nicholas in a two-on-one situation, who ran in from 20 metres. The conversion was missed.

The All Blacks knew they needed to make the most of any opportunities they had and they drew level on 24 minutes.

A driving maul was set up from a lineout and stopped two metres out. However Bulut passed to skipper Lloyd Duke, who finished. Glenn Coles converted.

The final 12 minutes of the first-half swung the contest firmly in St Ives’ favour.

On 28 minutes, they were awarded a penalty try as Knight was adjudged to have tripped the onrushing player. And Knight spent the next ten minutes in the bin.

On the half hour they had their fourth try as another driving run from Prisk saw him pass to Nicholas, who played in winger Jack Kessell to go over in the left-hand corner.

At 26-12 down the All Blacks would have had a chance. But the deficit was increased to 21 points two minutes before the break as Prisk grabbed a deserved try. Magee had converted all three and Launceston were staring down the barrel.

St Ives’ heavyweight pack were proving too hot to handle after the break as well. They went 40-12 in front five minutes into the second-half as hooker Ben Taylor peeled down the blindside off a maul to score in the corner.

The All Blacks had 35 minutes to score four times, but despite St Ives tiring, they failed to do so.

Duke grabbed his second of the afternoon on 56 minutes as good work from Westren saw him crash through two defenders before offloading to Duke who ran in from seven metres.

The next 19 minutes saw no change to the scoreboard before Launceston grabbed a couple of consolation tries.

Westren offloaded to Duke, who was faced with a three-on-two situation in his favour.

He drew his marker before passing to Shaun Crawford, who did likewise which allowed the speedy Dan Pearce to run in from ten metres.

They grabbed their fifth try with the last play of the game as a rampaging run from Clarke saw him give the ball to Brandon Rowley who drew in Magee and offloaded to Westren who gained a deserved try for his efforts.

Despite the comeback, the league leaders were out of the Cornwall Cup and left to focus on gaining promotion back to the Tribute South West Premier.

Westren admitted that his side were outplayed from start to finish.

He said: “I’m hugely disappointed. Losing to Wadebridge last year was disappointing but St Ives are a decent side, especially at home. There’s no shame in losing to them and on the day they were much the better side and deserved to win.

“We prepared well but the rest of the Cornish sides have a really big history in the competition which until last year we hadn’t. They were dying to win it and we had to try and replicate our league form. We made a point all week of saying it’s a great chance to get some silverware but we came up short.”

Westren admitted that it was almost an impossible task at half-time.

“We came back from a big deficit in the league game down here but we managed to score just before half-time, which gave us a massive lift but it was pretty much done at half-time. We pulled it back and made it look a bit more respectable in the last 15 minutes which shows what we can do as a team, but they had already won the game and they knew it.

“Six of their eight forwards were massive and we came under wave after wave of pressure. They just kept coming and dominated. Like I said, they were the better side and had learned from what happened in the league and we didn’t, so we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The All Blacks will look to maintain their six-point cushion at the top of the league on Saturday when they welcome former head of rugby Mike Lewis back to Polson Bridge.

The former Launceston supremo led the Plymouth-based club to promotion last term and they’ve won six of their nine games to sit fifth.

Westren said: “I don’t know a great deal about them but they have Mike Lewis in charge there and Chris Macdonald who played for us, so they have some inside info.

“They’re going okay considering it’s their first season at this level but I’m looking for a big response.

“There’ll be a big week of training and we need to get back on track. The St Ives game is done now and we want to go out there and show that we’re the league leaders for a reason.”

Westren expects to be able to call upon an unchanged squad and had some positive news on the injury front.

He said: “Reuben had to come off so we’ll monitor that but we should have a full side. Also Greg Thomas is now just a couple of weeks from returning and Will Morton should hopefully be back before Christmas so we’re in a good place.”

Kick-off is at 2.30pm.

Cornish All Blacks —

Edwards, Pearce, Westren, Sandercock, Hawke, Coles, Collings; Bentham, Bulut, Knight, Williams, Clarke, Snell, L Duke (captain), Rowley

Replacements: Jenkins, J Duke, Lightfoot, Crawford

Tries: Snell, L Duke 2, Pearce, Westren

Convs: Coles 4

Pens: N/A

Cornish All Blacks’ man-of-the-match: Ryan Westren