LAUNCESTON head coach Ryan Westren feels his side aren’t far away despite slipping to a third defeat on the spin on Saturday in Regional One South West as they went down 22-20 to Cornish rivals St Austell.

The All Blacks led 13-11 at the break thanks to tries from Rory Mead and Billy Martin and a James Tucker penalty.

The Saints responded early in the second half through the influential Hector Bright before a Ben Saunders three-pointer with 10 minutes remaining put them six points clear.

Mitch Hawken powered over from close-range before Tucker added the extras to seemingly give Launceston victory with four minutes remaining, but the visitors conceded a penalty from the restart, which Saunders made no mistake from.

Westren felt his side did well for large periods, but admits they need to iron out the small percenters.

He said: “Early on we did what we wanted to do and got on top which at the same time stopped them from getting into the game.

“We got some points relatively early and I felt pretty comfortable at half-time.

“But the try they got just after the break gave them a real boost and after that it was a bit of a ding-dong.

“The disappointing thing was, like at Sidmouth, we led going into the last couple of minutes, but couldn’t quite see it out.

“We’ve got to learn when we get the chance to see the game out, we do it.”

St Austell – not helped by an incredibly difficult fixture list – went into the day five points adrift at the bottom, and Westren wanted his side to take advantage.

He said: “We spoke about not letting them get the upper hand early on as obviously they’ve struggled a bit results wise, and we thought it might get in their head.

“But they had some really good individual performances – particularly their six (Hector Bright) who caused us plenty of problems all day.”

While Launceston were deservedly beaten by Royal Wootton Bassett, two-point defeats at Sidmouth and St Austell were tough to take.

He said: “Yes there’s always things for us to work on but in terms of our approach and gameplan, we’ve stuck to it pretty well.

“But it’s just about those little moments which turn into big swings in games.

“Yes we’ve now lost three in a row but we’ve been very competitive in all of them and I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before we convert one of those into a win.”

Things don’t get any easier this weekend as they welcome much-fancied Brixham (3pm).

He said: “They’re a very good side and before the league started were probably the favourites.

“They’ve also lost a couple of games but they turned that around on Saturday against an undefeated side in Topsham, so we know we’ll have to be at our very best to get a result.

“They’ve got some good individuals, have powerful runners and are very aggressive at the breakdown, but we’ve not been rolling over and with a near full squad to choose from, we’re really looking forward to welcoming them to Polson Bridge and trying to turn them over!”

The Castles visited their St Austell Seconds counterparts on Friday night in Counties Two Cornwall and were beaten 34-12 despite Jake Crabb’s brace and a conversion from George Mill.