Bridgnorth aim to bounce back on home turf

The All Blacks go into the clash on the back of a frustrating 27-22 loss at Syston last weekend.

As well as tasting defeat, Bridgnorth also lost No.8 Connor Nicholls and front row Nick Selway to injuries.

Elliot Murphy had given Bridgnorth an early lead with a penalty before Syston moved 14-3 in front. Tries from Jordan Burgess and James Fisher-Jones, which was converted by Murphy saw the visitors lead at the break. Syston then added two penalties and a converted try with Gareth Bladen’s late converted score coming too late for Bridgnorth.

“We lost a couple of players through injury and we looked disjointed,” said coach Bryan Smallman. “We were looking down the barrel a bit and not in a good place but then we scored two tries out of nothing to lead 15-14 at half time.

“There was a lot of conversation at half-time about what we needed to do but we gave away two silly penalties just after half-time. We then started to get frustrated and chase the game and gave the ball up too easily.

“In the last 10 minutes we picked up two yellow cards and were down to 13 men. But all of a sudden we started to play a bit more direct and use our power and got some points of the board.

“Had there been another five minutes then I think we might have won the game.

“If we had stuck to the fundamentals that we talk about then the game would have been ours to win.”