Saturday, January 12

Tribute South West One (West)

Cornish All Blacks 13

REPLACEMENT winger Kieran Lee scored a hat-trick as second-placed Okehampton reduced the deficit at the top of the table to just a point to the Cornish All Blacks by easing past the leaders at Oaklands Park.

The home side had won a tight tussle 17-10 back in September and many expected another close contest, with a score either way.

And while the opening exchanges were tight, Oke scored twice in the second-half to do the double and ramp the pressure up on Launceston ahead of their Cornish derby with St Ives at Polson Bridge on Saturday (2.30pm).

The All Blacks made four changes from the 37-27 victory against North Petherton seven days earlier including three in the pack as Greg Thomas replaced Chae Jenkins at tighthead-prop and Jordan Duke and Andy Knight formed a new partnership in the second-row. They replaced Dan Goldsmith and flanker Harry Lightfoot with Torin Clarke switching into the back-row to accommodate them.

Okehampton included ex-Polson Bridge favourites Rob Dugard at prop and Richard Friend in an unfamiliar full-back role while player/coach Gareth Evans was late arriving, meaning George Trerise was given a start at hooker.

The opening ten minutes were dominated by the All Blacks as their strong scrum caused the home side all manners of problems. However they only had an easy Glenn Coles penalty to show for their efforts.

And their failure to get points on the board cost them on 13 minutes. After Martin Kneebone did well to catch a penalty kick to the corner, albeit with his foot in touch according to the home faithful, he ran down the pitch towards halfway. However the ball was turned over and eventually played out to fly-half Dan Fogerty who showed some quick feet to play in scrum-half Joey Bruce who dodged some poor tackling to run in from 25 metres. Friend slotted the extras for a 7-3 lead.

The visiting scrum continued to cause problems while scrum-half Adam Collings’ kicking also proved effective.

They went back in front on 22 minutes as a scrum penalty saw them drive the powerful Oke forwards back over the line with number eight Brandon Rowley taking the credit. Coles slotted a wonderful kick from the corner.

At 10-7 ahead the All Blacks were confident. However the home crowd had plenty to cheer about five minutes later as skipper Tom McGrattan collected a short lineout from Evans, who by now had brought himself on, and showed some silky skills to race down the line and score. Friend again converted for a 14-10 lead.

Coles’ kicking has been a feature of Launceston’s season and he slotted another penalty shortly after to reduce the arrears to one.

On 35 minutes left-winger Luke Honeychurch was forced off injured, meaning Lee had to came on, and what an impact he had.

Four minutes later he dotted down in front of the clubhouse corner after more great work from McGrattan and Evans. Friend made it three from three off the tee and Okehampton were 21-13 up at the break.

The All Blacks started the second-half well but Coles missed a 46th minute penalty, as they failed to turn dominance into points.

And on 49 minutes they were made to pay in sensational fashion. McGrattan picked the ball up at the base of a scrum between his own 22 and ten-metre lines before running down the blindside. From there he played in Bruce who eventually laid the ball off for the flying Lee to score from 15 metres.

Again the All Blacks fought back without scoring, while on the hour Evans thought he’d scored but was adjudged to have been held up by referee Stuart Read.

The pattern of the play was pretty even but Okehampton made the most of their chances and that was the case for Lee’s hat-trick with eight minutes remaining.

A kick to the edge of the All Blacks 22 was seized upon by inside-centre Bevon Armitage. He ran crossfield slightly before passing to Evans who expertly offloaded for Lee to fly over the whitewash.

The All Blacks went close to a consolation try with a couple minutes to go.

Speedy winger Dan Pearce intercepted a pass in his own 22 and seemed to have a clean route to the line.

However Armitage’s midfield partner Rhys Palmer showed tremendous speed and determination to get back and tackle him a few metres short.

The rest of the game was played out leaving the All Blacks with plenty of work to do if they are to earn promotion.

Launceston player/coach, Ryan Westren, admitted they were way off the pace.

He said: “On the day we simply weren’t good enough. We started pretty well for the first ten to 15 minutes where we had full control, but there was a momentum shift on about 15 minutes when Richard Friend caught a long kick and ran 30 or 40 metres. That got them into the game and we struggled to get a foothold from there on in.

“We had pretty good scrum dominance but where we really came unstuck was dealing with their big ball carriers and the battle in the tighter exchanges in the loose. Hats off to Okehampton, they were fired up and ready and took advantage of every opportunity they had. Neither side really unlocked each other but I have no complaints. They were far the better side and we came off second by a considerable margin. Normally games like that are decided by tight margins but they were convincing winners.”

Westren was quick to share the blame as well as the players, but is determined to make sure the loss doesn’t haunt them.

He said: “We picked the best side we thought to win the game but we keep making the same mistakes. We work on this all the time but at the end of the day it comes down to the will and want of the whole set-up. What we need is a bit of accountability, it’s a team effort from the coaches and players alike!

“But we’re not going to let one game define our season because after 16 rounds we’re top by ourselves, and that’s what we’ll be working on this week.

“We can’t dwell on it too much. All we can do is work on our mistakes from Saturday and identify them and try and work out why it went wrong. It’s all part of the learning process, we have to remember we are still learning. We want to stay grounded and keep working away at it!”

Fourth-placed St Ives are the visitors to Polson Bridge on Saturday and Westren knows it’ll be tough against a side who they edged out in a thriller in the league, but lost to in the quarter-finals of the Tribute Cornwall Cup.

He said: “We have to play everyone at some point but my hope as a coach is that we get a serious response. There’s no easy games in this league so hopefully we’ll get a good reaction and get back on the horse.

“That’ll come from working hard this week. We’ll disect it and everyone will be tight and hopefully we can get back to winning ways.

“They’re quite similar to Okehampton. They have a big old pack and you know it’s going to be a physical game. They have big carriers who get them on the front foot so we have to deal with that.”

Okehampton —

Friend, R Lee, Palmer, Armitage, Honeychurch, Fogerty, Bruce; Nash, Trerise, Dugard, Pearce, Turner, Lawrence, Abrams, McGrattan

Replacements: Evans, Curtis, K Lee

Tries: Bruce, McGrattan, K Lee 3

Convs: Friend 3

Pens: N/A

Cornish All Blacks —

Sandercock, Edwards, Westren, Crawford, Kneebone, Coles, Collings; Bentham, Bulut, Thomas, Knight, J Duke, Clarke, L Duke (captain), Rowley

Replacements: Jenkins, Goldsmith, Pearce

Tries: Rowley

Convs: Coles

Pens: Coles 2

Cornish All Blacks’ man-of-the-match: Tom Sandercock