National?League Three South West

Cornish?All Blacks 6

By Suzanne Cleave

THE Cornish All Blacks put in another disappointing performance as they fell to a 8-6 defeat at home to Lydney in National League Three South West.

It was a tough encounter for both teams, who linger towards the bottom of the league table.

The defeat sees the Polson outfit now sit one place and eleven points behind Lydney, who are fourth bottom and have a game in hand.

Reflecting on the game, captain Lloyd Duke, admitted that the performance wasn’t good enough.

Duke said: "Mistakes cost us today. If you make too many mistakes, you’re not going to win games.

"For periods we were the superior side. They played a narrow game very well. “They had players who slowed our ball down. They were good at that. But I don’t think we worked hard enough, and we played a lot of rugby in our half. It was a massively disappointing afternoon. Next week we’ve got to bounce back. We feel, as a team, that we’ve got the ingredients to be a really good team in the league, but we just need to start to express ourselves in how we play. It’s all about getting the basics right and today we didn’t."

Lydney must have thought it was their lucky day when the All Blacks ’gifted’ them the only try of the game, after, instead of letting the ball go out, a Launceston player went to kick the ball out but it was picked up by Tai Lakibuka who went over. The conversion was missed.

Shortly after Fraser Honey scored a penalty for the All Blacks, but that was their only score of the first-half.

The All Blacks had a number of opportunities to score, as they got to the Lydney try line on a few occasions, but they were their own worst enemy, giving away penalties and losing possession.

Lydney extended their score by three points, when the All Blacks conceded a penalty for a high tackle and Anthony Wicks kicked the ball brought the posts. At half-time Lydney led 8-3.

The All Blacks were one man up when Lydney’s number eight, Toby Patrick, was shown a yellow card. Honey made another good penalty kick to reduce the deficit to just two.

Launceston continued to be penalised with regularity but Lydney continued to struggle to kick the ball between the posts as both attempts were missed.

A third penalty was kicked to the corner and play moved in front of the posts. The All Blacks were on the defence and the ball was kicked out of danger, but the home side were penalised once more.

Wicks took the kick in the dying minutes of the game and scored. It was game over for the All Blacks. Still, the home side gave it their all and almost stepped up a gear, giving a huge effort to score what would have undoubtedly been a winning try. They tried to find touch, but the ball went astray. More attempts to go over were made, but the referee signalled that the ball was held up and blew the whistle to signal a ninth defeat in their 12 league outings so far.

Next week they make the trip to the outskirts of Bristol to take on Cleve, who are level on points with Lydney, before finishing their pre-Christmas programme with a home game against Hornets.

Cornish All Blacks:

Pens: Honey 2

Lydney:

Try: Lakibuka

Pen: Wicks