National?League Three South?West

Old Redcliffians 21

Cornish All Blacks 17

THE?Cornish?All Blacks fell to defeat for the first time in 2017 with a narrow 21-17 loss at league leaders Old Redcliffians.

Boosted by an incredible turnaround in form which saw them win four of their last five league outings, the All Blacks would have been confident of gaining more from their trip to the outskirts of Bristol.

Things didn’t start well for them however as they spent the first 15 minutes repelling dangerous attacks from the home backs.

The pressure eventually told as full-back Henry Bird ran through to score the opening try. Ashley Groves added the extras to make it 7-0.

Old Reds continued to dominate but were made to pay for failing to take advantage.

After winning a penalty, Jordan Duke won the lineout and was easily able to rampage his way over. The conversion was missed but the game was back in the balance.

The pattern of the game continued with Old Reds making most of the running and the All Blacks needing to be firm in defence.

However the home side went back in front when Greg Thomas was adjudged to have pulled down a rolling maul, leaving referee James Milner no choice but to sin-bin him and award a penalty try which was again converted by Groves.

One of the standout qualities in the All Blacks in recent weeks has been their ability to hit back immediately, and it was again the case as they added a second try before half-time.

Prop Rikki Bentham stretched his way over after a nice pass inside from a maul. Again Martin Kneebone missed the conversion but after being on the backfoot for most of the half, the All Blacks were in the game.

With the slope behind them, the visitors started the second-half brightly but fell further behind when flanker Scott Coster touched down after pouncing on a stray pass in the All Blacks 22.

Now 11 points behind the All Blacks turned down to kickable penalties for lineouts which ended up being fruitless. They did manage a third score when the home side were adjudged to have infringed at a scrum, leaving Kneebone a simple conversion to reduce the gap to just four points.

However, the home side finally showed why they’re top of the league in the closing stages as they kept the ball away from their line down the clock and even went close for a fourth try.

In the end it didn’t matter as they held on to earn a vital win in their bid for promotion while the All Blacks are now deep in trouble after wins for Lydney and?Salisbury means they’re six points from safety with the same number of games remaining,

Head of Rugby, Jimmy Tucker was pleased with the visitors’ performance in a game where fine margins made all the difference.

Tucker said: “It was a decent hard-working performance from us without being sensational.

“For the first 15 minutes we were under a lot of pressure but we could have sneaked it, but in the end we had to settle for a bonus point.

“However, this game shows just how tight this league is and that everyone can beat everyone.

“I thought Sam Stevens had his best game for us at scrum-half while Chris McDonald and Lloyd Duke both played well in the back-row.

“In the second-half we looked dangerous, especially through Ryan Westren, but we couldn’t quite get the points we needed.”

Next weekend sees the start of the last quarter of the season, however the All Blacks have a number of the mid-table sides to play as well as a potentially season defining clash at Lydney on April?Fool’s Day.

But Tucker believes that his side should be confident of winning every game they go into.

He said: “We now have six games left and we’ll go in believing we can win every game. If we win most of our games we should stay up but this league throws up funny results. We just need to focus on the next game and making sure that we’re prepared for the Bournemouth game next weekend. We know it’s a potential banana-skin but having a week off will gives us a chance to rest up and get rid of some of the bumps and bruises on the players.

“We had a few players missing on Saturday and I hope that we’ll be back to somewhere near full-strength next weekend.”

Cornish All Blacks:

Tries: J Duke, Bentham, Penalty Try

Convs:?Kneebone