LAUNCESTON head coach and director of rugby Ryan Westren admits ‘we need to get our attack functioning a bit better’ as they prepare for a hectic five-game schedule leading into Christmas.

The All Blacks sit seventh in Regional One South West with three wins and five defeats from their eight outings, and are four points above second bottom Marlborough, but just seven adrift of third-placed Lydney who they host on Saturday (3pm).

With just under a quarter of the league fixtures being played before the end of the year, it’s the time of the season which decides which area of the table they will likely battle it out for heading into the spring.

Launceston have secured seven bonus points so far, one of the best in the division, but although they picked up another at struggling Chew Valley in a 21-15 defeat on November 8, it was a performance Westren admitted wasn’t their finest.

He said: “We’ve given a good account of ourselves in every game so far this season, but I thought at Chew Valley was the first time we didn’t quite do ourselves justice.

“We were still in the fight all the way through, but we never quite put our grip on the game as we’d have liked and they probably deserved to win.

“It was a bit of a frustrating result as we wanted to take the momentum picked up from the end of the Brixham game, but we did at least pick up a losing bonus point away from home which is always important.”

After facing Lydney, Launceston round off the first half of the season by visiting leaders Devonport Services and then hosting fourth-placed Exmouth, but Westren is more worried about what his side produce.

He continued: “We’ve got a tough run of fixtures coming up, we know that, but if we’re on it we back ourselves against anyone in this league at Polson Bridge. That said, I don’t feel like we’re too far away from where we need to be, although we need to get our attack functioning a bit better.

“The desire and want to defend has been there all season, but we’ve spent too much time defending for long periods, and there’s only so long you can do that without conceding.

“As for Lydney, they are a very decent team and a typical Gloucestershire side who are combative and very hard to play against. It’s important we play in the right areas of the field and not put too much pressure on ourselves.

“We’ve got to try and match them up front and provide the platform for our attack which is something we need to improve on from the first third of the season. Hopefully we can get some decent prep in this week as the poor weather means it’s been difficult to get out on the training pitch.”

Launceston’s 18-man squad is set to include a familiar face as forward Torin Clarke has re-joined the All Blacks from Plymouth Albion.

However, with back-row spots incredibly difficult to come by in the side, he could line up in the second-row.

Westren concluded: “There’s no doubting Torin’s quality, he’s a really good player, but we’ll integrate him in the right way and also by making sure we don’t put anyone’s nose out of joint who has been good for us all season.”