National Two South

Cornish All Blacks

Canterbury — Postponed

Polson Bridge

A WATERLOGGED pitch at Polson Bridge forced Launceston’s crucial match with Canterbury to be postponed on Saturday, meaning the basement club will return to action, for the first time in 2016, this weekend, away to high-flying Taunton Titans.

With second-from-bottom Canterbury being the side within closest reach for the All Blacks, albeit with a 16 point gap, it was going to be, like every game from now until the end of the season, treating like a cup final — a must win.

Luckily for the All Blacks, although third and fourth from bottom Chinnor and Redingensians played at the weekend, they both lost, so they didn’t open up the gap even further.

The hard times that the All Blacks have faced this season have been no secret to anyone and it has been unsurprising to many that they have struggled to get many points on the board.

At the start of the season, they lost several players to Plymouth Albion and, in doing so, ripped a core group of players out of what was a young, promising Cornish All Blacks’ side.

Departures included Jake Murphy, now Plymouth Albion captain, Matt Shepherd, Chris Judge, Billy Searle and Jon Dawe — all part of current Albion director of rugby Graham Dawe’s Cornwall side that won the Bill Beaumont County Championship Cup last year.

Graham Dawe took up the role at Albion in January last year — his second stint in the position — and once the 2014/15 season finished, he didn’t wait long to raid the All Blacks’ talented squad.

23-year-old Jon Dawe has returned to Polson Bridge on loan throughout the season, and really bolstered their chances in the games he’s been involved in, but it is starting to become clear that the All Blacks will need more than the odd loan spell to save them from the drop.

Going into the game with Taunton Titans on Saturday, the Cornish All Blacks can take positives from the fact Taunton lost against Barnes 20-15 at the weekend, and when the All Blacks faced Barnes in October they only narrowly lost 33-31 — so, as ever, all to play for.