Bridgnorth are eyeing a home success

The All Blacks host Burton in rugby’s Regional One Midlands looking for a second consecutive victory and determined to bounce back from a rare defeat in their last outing at the Edgar Davies Ground.

A 36-19 triumph at Broadstreet last Saturday will have boosted confidence levels following the 22-21 home defeat the week before against Bromsgrove – the first time Bridgnorth have lost at home in the league in over a year.

“It was nice to score a few tries and get some points,” said head coach Bryan Smallman. “It was a very different Broadstreet to what we are use to. They lost quite a lot of players during the close season.

“They scored first, pretty much from the kick-off. We made a couple of errors from defensive sets and there were moments where we switched off.

“That was the only disappointment, that we conceded a couple of tries against a side that didn’t really create much.

“But confidence wise it was exactly what we needed.”

And now Smallman is braced for a tougher test when Burton roll into town on Saturday.

“It’s Burton next and that will be a tough test,” he said. “Experience tells me that you rarely come across a poor Burton team.

“They will challenge you in every aspect of the game. We are going to have our work cut out and it will be interesting to see how we go.”

Last Saturday’s clash saw Broadstreet strike with a converted try with just two minutes on the clock.

Winger Matt Burke and Elliot Murphy both scored unconverted tries for the visitors, but they went in trailing 12-10 at half-time.

But Bridgnorth then took charge in the second half with tries from James Barham (two), Luke Brough and Luis Evitt.