Rosslyn Park 26

Cornish All Blacks 18

Basic errors and the boot of Park's fly-half Ross Laidlaw turned what could have been an All Black victory into a 26-18 defeat in this National One opener at Priory Lane.

Laidlaw bagged 16 points from two conversions and four penalties, taking full advantage of the visitors' mistakes and ill-discipline.

All Black coach Tony Roques said: "Rosslyn Park were well-organised and a good team but we started off really well and looked dangerous in the backs and our pack supplied decent ball. But we gave them their two tries from simple, basic errors – knock-ons, missing penalty kicks to touch, losing key line-outs.

"I hope we just had a bad day at the office. Looking at the video of the game afterwards was embarrassing. We gave them penalty after penalty and their goalkicker kicked the points. We have some hard lessons to learn, but there were good points too. When we were good we were very good."

The All Blacks went into an early lead with a try from wing Ben Turner after a good threequarter move, but the Londoners soon claimed a lead they were never to lose when fly-half Steve Perry had a clearance kick charged down and all home lock Joseph Launchbury had to do was hack on and fall over the line.

Offside and in-at-the-side offences gave Laidlaw his first two penalties, Mal Roberts replied in kind, and at the interval the All Blacks were five points adrift at 13-8.

Their mistakes continued. Another charge-down, this time from a clearance attempt by scrum-half Lewis Webb, gifted Park their second try, lock Howard Quigley repeating Launchbury's score.

A flurry of successful penalty kicks (a second for Roberts and two more for Laidlaw) and sin-binnings for both sides and the All Blacks found themselves further behind.

They scorched back in the last 15 minutes and were rewarded with a try by flanker Josh Lord after a great run by wing Richard Bright and a sweeping backs move. Roberts converted and the pressure was sustained – but further scores eluded them.

Rosslyn Park: Davies; Lindsay-Hague, Sweeney, Crower (Lewis 58), Rudd; Laidlaw, Baxter; Huggett; Tauiala (Crotting 68), Collier; Quigley, Launchbury; Rowland (Pape 3), Barrett (Crotting 8-20), Lock (capt). Replacement (not used): Lapidus.

Yellow cards: Rudd, Pape.

Scorers: Tries – Launchbury, Quigley; Conversions – Laidlaw (2); Penalties – Laidlaw (4).

Cornish All Blacks: Roberts; Bright, Westren, Nonu, Turner; Perry, Webb; Andrew (Hurdwell 77), Semmens (Salter 65), Bayliss; Hilton, Jenkins (Fleming 50); Lord, T Rawlings (capt), M Rawlings. Replacements (not used): Lewitt, Murphy.

Yellow card: Hilton.

Scorers: Tries – Turner, Lord; Conversion – M Roberts; Penalties – Roberts (2).

Referee: G Macdonald (RFU).

Attendance: 850.