Novos 7, Morpeth 29

Squad - Steinberg, Antons, Twentyman, Igoe, Wright, Foster, Stewart, Burgess, Chater, Dodd, Wilkes, Nash, Busby, Duncan A, Parkinson, Cousins, Whittaker, Wilson, Selkirk, Duncan R

On Monday we were 5 mins away from turning this into a training match and conceding the tie such was the unavailability of our front rowers. However, as always at Novos players from outside of the wider squad stepped up to aide the clubs cause. Andrew Steinberg, Mike Cousins, Luke Foster, Daniel Whittaker and Christian Selkirk jumping from the 2/3's into the 1's. Fair play.

Morpeth kicked off and it was shown straight away that it was going to be a long night as we were starved of possession at the set piece. Great pre season work out for our defence as our possession stat must of stayed at about 25-30% all night. With real tenacity we tore into the Morpeth attack, repeatedly making them spill the ball. In addition, we were getting turnovers from our first man in getting hands on the ball. The tackle count was led by Luke Foster and Alistair Burgess up front whilst Jez Nash made tackle after tackle out wide. The turnover race was won by Josh Wright with a number of steals whilst Josh Igoe grabbed a couple as well.

For all Morpeths possession in the first half they were unable to breach our try line. Much of this was due to our courage in defence and the kicking of Richard Dodd who continually pushed Morpeth back into their own half. After putting two kickable penalty's into the corner and not scoring the finally kicked a penalty to make it 3-0. Respect gained from a team half way up the league above us.

The second half was a repeat of the first as Morpeth once again dominated possession. Time and time again we scrambled but all the defending took its toll and Morpeth crossed for a couple of scores. They made a lot less handling errors in the second half and put together several phases of play. We cleared our bench with everyone getting some deserved game time and their were some nice moments from Rory Duncan making his first team debut and Stu Wilson bringing his physicality to the match.

It wasn't all one way traffic though as they tired slightly we finally got some much needed possession. We had some fine moments in the last quarter as Richard Dodd took the ball up to the line and we made some breaks via Josh Igoe and Jez Nash. However, as usual it was the try scoring machine in Sam Busby that scored our only try of the night. In an unfamiliar role as outside centre Busby did a beautiful "show and go" stepped his opponent and hit the gas, The Morpeth fullback showed Busby one side and he took it sprinting past him to score a great try, conversion added by Jonno Wilkes.

The final score was 29-7 as current holders Morpeth progress in the senior cup competition. However, I feel we won plenty of respect from the higher ranked side and showed we can cope with the step up in opposition.

Thank you to all the support we received on a Thursday night. It was great to see that after a hard days work people still travelled to Morpeth to watch us play. Despite being away from home and under the cosh for 70 mins I think it was our supporters who made the most noise.

Cheers, to Dave Charlton for taking charge of the match and for Becks and Brian for running the line. Dave looked full of running and made some good decisions helped by the fact that he is probably faster than a lot of the players !

Thank you to Morpeth for the game, very competitive match from which we will take a lot of positives. We wish you well in your attempts to hold onto the trophy won in fine style over Percy Park last season.

Finally, thanks to our players for putting in such a spirited performance without a lot of possession. We never gave in, scored a try in the last ten mins showing our fitness is coming along.

The 2/3's have a match at home to Rockcliffe on Saturday at 1500, hope to see the 1's their to return last nights support. Then it's on to training Monday/Thursday prior to starting the league campaign on 3/9 vs Hartlepool.

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