National?League Three South West

Cornish All Blacks 6

Bracknell 19

CORNISH All Blacks, head of rugby, Jimmy Tucker has labelled his side’s performance as ‘below par’ following Saturday’s bitterly disappointing 19-6 home defeat to Bracknell in National League Three South West.

The struggling All Blacks who have only won twice from ten games, would have been confident of victory over the Berkshire-based visitors having been unbeaten in their last three home games and who went into the fixture just one point ahead.

However a poor performance left Tucker demanding more.

Tucker said: “Saturday’s performance was below par. We never got stuck in like we should have done and we weren’t physical enough.

“Once we let them get ahead of us it was always going to be hard work as it is in any standard of rugby, but we didn’t do enough with or without the ball.”

It was always going to be an uphill battle in muddy, wet conditions despite Fraser Honey twice responding with penalties for the home side after Valentino Clark and Michael Clare had taken advantage of poor home defending to take Bracknell into the break 14-6 up.

Bracknell had a big powerful pack, and used their strength and the conditions to slow the game down before the clinching the points in the second-half with a try from Leo Bailey.

Saturday sees the All Blacks on the road, this time at Devon rivals Brixham, and Tucker is expecting another tough afternoon with bragging rights at stake, even though New Zealander Everard Reid will be available for the first time since joining the club until the end of the season.

He said: “I’m expecting the game on Saturday to be incredibly tough. Because of the fact that they’ve been below us in the league structure for about 20 years they’re going to be at us like a red rag to a bull and force us into errors. We’ve got to stand up to that and hopefully we will.”

Talking for the first time about his new recruit, Tucker is hoping that he can inject some much needed presence into the forwards while proving to be a talisman for the rest of the squad to follow for the rest of the campaign.

Tucker continued: “It’s something we’ve been waiting on for a while and it’s a timely boost for the club. We know we need a bigger pack and he’ll definitely raise the standards throughout the whole team and help the rest of the players get better.”