Carnegie’s Beck rises to personal duel with All Black

AS much as he relished going toe-to-toe with an All Black for 80 minutes, Yorkshire Carnegie’s Richard Beck knows his side need to be far more competitive if they are to hold their own in the Championship.

The blindside flanker pitted himself against ex-New Zealand international Steven Luatua in Friday’s 44-14 defeat against unbeaten leaders Bristol.

Luatua, who also played No 6, has made 15 Test appearances for the world champions, the last of which was only last year, and also featured with the Blues when they beat the British Lions in Auckland this summer.

He joined Bristol this season after their relegation from the Premiership and now, as captain, is leading their bid to make an immediate return.

Luatua, 26, was one of nine internationals in the side as Bristol maintained their 100 per cent winning record this season.

Carnegie, who visit Jersey on Saturday, dropped to seventh and Leeds-born Beck said: “Personally, I was obviously against an All Black in Steven Luatua which is good for me.

“I enjoyed every minute of it going up against him. I enjoyed the challenge. He’s a good player isn’t he? But you raise your game for that and look forward to playing those sorts of guys.

“We want to compete harder, though, than how we did. We need to give ourselves more chance to compete. We let them out too easily.

“I think in patches we showed we could compete and we got the better of Bristol at times but we were just too inconsistent.

“Any mistakes they just jumped on and they’re too good a team with too many good players.

“We’ve got to be more clinical against better teams and we need to build again at Jersey.”