CORNISH All Blacks’ skipper, Lloyd Duke, admits that his side ‘didn’t do themselves justice defensively’ as they fell to a 51-27 defeat at Newent last Saturday.

The All Blacks found themselves 19-3 down at the interval and shipped a further 32 points in the second-half as the Gloucestershire-based hosts ran in eight tries in total.

To their credit, the visitors responded with a couple of late scores of their own to earn a bonus point, but dropped down to third in the table ahead of their first home game of the season against winless North Petherton on Saturday.

Jimmy Tucker and his coaching staff made four changes from their 29-22 victory at Thornbury a fortnight before, with Rory Cinnamond and Jordan Duke coming into the front row for the absent Levent ‘Fred’ Bulut (injured) and Andy Knight (work) while Jake Crabb made his first league start in the second-row with Chris McDonald moving into the back-row to replace George Bone as part of a reshuffle. The final change saw Ben Stansfield come in at fly-half for Shaun Crawford, who joined Bone among the replacements.

Newent were playing their first home game of the season after a win and two defeats on their travels and were in a determined mood right from the off.

Although full-back Dan Pearce put the All Blacks 3-0 ahead with a 25-metre penalty, the ‘Green Army’ were 7-3 ahead soon after as scrum-half James Dean darted over.

The home side were applying the majority of the pressure and scored two quick tries before the break through fly-half Will Mansfield and Dean’s second of the afternoon, the latter converted by Ross Webb.

The All Blacks knew they needed the next score to make a game of it, and it came from winger Martin Kneebone after a fine move, which involved several phases. Pearce converted the extras to make it 19-8.

Newent responded instantly as a run from flanker George Phelps to the All Blacks’ 22 ended with the referee awarding the home side a penalty. Webb again converted to increase the lead to 14 points, and not long after, they put the game of the visitors’ reach.

On 50 minutes Newent scored their fourth try when a move involving Mansfield and Charlie Gellert ended with winger Dan Fletcher going over in the corner.

Fletcher grabbed his second five minutes later after more fine work from Dean and Phelps as the ‘Green Army’ went 32-8 up.

With nothing to lose, Launceston fought back, and after a spell of conserted pressure, Ryan Westren went over for his fourth try of the season, which was converted by Pearce.

However, Newent scored again from a restart. Fine work from lock Russell Upton ended with Gellert going over from close range after a long build-up. Replacement Tom Devries added the extras to make it 39-15.

The ‘Green Army’ were now rampant, and they scored twice in quick succession towards the end as the partnership between Webb at number eight and Dean at scrum-half set the base for winger Tom Martin to go over in the left-hand corner on each occasion, although Devries could only convert one of them.

Such is the difference in quality in the Launceston backline this season, they remarkably scored twice in stoppage time to earn a bonus point as Westren bundled his way over after good work from the forwards, before the sheer pace of Pearce was evident once more as he scythed his way through the Newent defence to dot down his fourth try of the season. He ended the game by drop-kicking the conversion over as they made the long trip back to North Cornwall with a bonus point for their efforts.

Despite the late improvement, Duke admits that the defence simply wasn’t up to the mark and said that although last week’s concession by Matson didn’t help, there were no excuses for failing to back up their performance at Thornbury.

Duke said: “Up until now we’ve been defensively strong but we didn’t do ourselves justice defensively at Newent.

“At 19-3 down at half-time we still felt like we were in it and we scored the first try of the second-half with a good try from Martin Kneebone.

“But we made too many mistakes and conceded two tries from the first phase, which was poor.

“To be fair to them they were a decent side and the most complete team we’ve played so far. But we made them look better than they were. Our first-up tackling and ball retention wasn’t good enough and we were nowhere near as good as we were in the first couple of games.

“Although it might have made a difference not playing for a couple of weeks and we were sort of restarting, there were no excuses for Saturday. We simply weren’t up to it.

“Although we won the first two games, our retention of possession needed to improve and the fact that our defence was so good helped us win those games.

“But we know we need to get better at keeping the ball as we’ve found silly ways of giving up possession and you can’t afford to do it.”

Despite the setback, Duke still found a few positives to take.

Duke said: “I think the most frustrating part in some ways was that we scored twice towards the end. It showed that we were capable of scoring tries and Ryan scored his fifth try of the season with Dan getting his fourth. We’ve got the most dangerous backline we’ve had in years. If we can get the ball in-hand I feel like we’re going to rip teams apart so we need to make sure we keep the ball to give them a chance.”

Despite Newent dominating the scrum, Duke was pleased with the individual performances of his relatively inexperienced front five, although he admitted the absence of Andy Knight was a big factor.

Duke said: “To be honest we missed Andy a lot on Saturday for his ball-carrying, tackling and leadership as well as at scrum time. However, the lineout went really well and the boys who came in did well. The props had to play 80 minutes each, which is some ask, while Jake Crabb did pretty well on his first start.”

Saturday sees the first home league game of the season, and Duke admits that the players are desperate to finally run out at Polson Bridge.

Duke said: “Everyone is very excited about Saturday, to put the wrongs from last weekend right.

“It’s a really special place to play and the cancellation against Matson has only made it even more exciting for us. It’s felt like forever to get back to Polson and we’re desperate to put on a good performance for the fans.”

Second bottom North Petherton are the visitors, and although their points difference of minus 90 points to a comfortable afternoon’s work, the Somerset club have lost three of their four matches by six points or less.

Duke admits that he doesn’t know what to expect, but believes that their results either side of a 76-0 drubbing at Exeter University, indicate that a tough game awaits them.

Duke said: “They’ve had three very close games apart from the Exeter University game, who will be the team to beat in the division, so it shows that they’ve made it very tough for teams and could have easily picked up some wins. We’ll treat them with respect and make sure we bounce back from last week. We don’t know a great deal about them but the coaching staff will do their homework and we’ll make sure we’re ready.

“Andy is back after having to work last week while nearly everyone else should be available. The only doubt will be as to whether Fred (Bulut) will be fit, but we’ll know as the week goes on.”

Kick-off on Saturday is at 3pm.