Novos Battle Hard Against Likely League WInners

The day started out well as the 2's had a run around at the club prior to getting the train to Durham in support of the ones. Then the first team managed to get every player on and off the train and at City in time for the warm up. In addition, including the injured players and Aliks there were over 40 supporters in attendance to support the lads.

We were able to field a strong pack and a youthful looking backline with two 18 year olds at scrum half and fly half in the form of Lewis Chater and Jonno Wilkes.

Durham City look likely to win the league and the match was simply to confirm that they are still some distance from us over the period of 80 mins.

City started the game flying and their backs looked a very talented group of players. Three tries in the first 15 mins were conceded as we were unable to cope with the width of passing from their 9/10 nor the power and pace of their centres. However, there were positive signs up front as our pack matched the league leaders. This couldn't prevent City racing out to a 19-0 lead though.

After twenty mins we started to put them under pressure and City became rattled. We had a line out 15m out and looked certain to score when their second row collapsed the maul. He was yellow carded for the offence and we again chose to kick to touch. We drove the resulting lineout via Ben Merrett over the try line and were back in the match at 19-5.

After some fine carries we were back in our opponents 22 within mins of our previous try. Again a City side under pressure conceded a penalty which we kicked to touch. The lineout was about 15m out and we again drove it to within a metre of the line before Merrett crashed over for his second try. Conversion added by Jonno Wilkes to make it 19-12.

City were much the better side throughout but we had closed the scoreboard enough to make the game a contest. As such, City chose to kick a penalty prior to half time much to the delight of our crowd, who perhaps thought they should have ran it.

Half time reached with the score 22-12 with City dominating the game but not the scoreboard.

The second half started twice as I tried to ref in the absence of Carl Hall who was otherwise engaged. City didn't find it very amusing but this sad old man had a chuckle. The second half began in earnest eventually and was perhaps more representative of the game as City stretched the score out in the last quarter to 50-12.

I was very impressed by City as I did not see the game at our place early in the season. They have a reasonable pack but their strength lies in their 9/10/12/13. They will be worthy winners of the league.

Thanks to Carl Hall for officiating the match. I think he has made a lot of progress in recent years and seemed to enjoy the game despite the scoreboard being one sided.

To the Novos lads, there were a lot of positive signs for the club. The spirit was great in terms of the twos coming to watch and cheer us on. The forwards were competitive throughout and it was great to see us drive the league leaders over for two tries. Our younger backs had a great learning experience from a good back line and will benefit from playing against quality opponents.

Whilst there were positive signs we also need to understand the learning points - we need to be tougher to play against, we must focus solely on playing rugby and not get dragged into verbals with our opponents, we have improved season upon season but still have a long way to go if we have aspirations of eventually pushing into the top four.

Next week we are away to Acklam, a side who I think are a lot better than their league position. They will be a big test as we start to try and consolidate our top six position during the run in to the end of the season.