More End Of Season Heroics

That's Bishop Auckland, Consett and now Darlington that have been defeated on the final day of the past three seasons. Against Bishop Auckland we won to clinch promotion, last season we beat Consett to avoid relegation, so it was that we went into this game with little or no pressure involved.

Perhaps a little too late but the Novos squad that took the field was the same side that was selected on Tuesday. A first for this season in what has been a season plagued by injuries and player unavailability. We were strong up front with Josh Stacey, Pete Twentyman, Tommy Goodman and Luke Menzfeld, Iain Dodds and Chris Ward in the tight five. Providing support via the back row were Jamie Wallace, Ben Merrett and Josh Igoe. In the backs, Andrew Maxwell started at nine with Matthew Kilgore and Rich Dixon helping him call the shots. In midfield Shaun Stewart, Johnny Ward and Rich Harrison were charged with using possession wisely. Finally, our back three was the balanced trio of Sam Busby, Peter Kay and Luke Mitchell.

The game kicked off after a well executed blast from ref for the day Graeme Cooper. Novos were having to soak up some early pressure from Darlington big hard running players. From a driven Darlo lineout near our goal line Stacey some how managed to come away with the ball. Despite being 5m from our line Kilgore threw a miss pass out to make shift centre Ward who skinned his man and then beat a couple of cover defenders to go 95m for a try ! Conversion added by Stewart, Novos up 7-0.

This score seem to settle Novos as we again went on attack. This time it was the packs turn to take on Darlo. We looked to drive a maul in which was clearly sacked, penalty. We chose to kick for touch again and this time the ref had no choice but to award a penalty try as Darlo sacked the next maul. The offending player sent to the sin bin to think about his actions. Conversion added by Stewart, Novos 14-0 ahead.

Darlington were never going to roll over on a day that was to see Big Joe Ostleton play his last game for his club. The responded with a try from a quick tap after an infringement at the lineout. Novos 14, Darlo 7.

Novos were playing as a team and the cohesion caused by having the same 9 and 10 out was clearly evident. The ball was getting shifted to Sam Busby a lot who got round his man with each touch. After two such breaks he off loaded for Merrett to run in untouched. Novos 19-7.

In a too and fro game Darlo responded with another quick tap resulting in a try again. In a spell of pressure Darlington went ahead for the first time after some strong carries around the edges. Darlo 21-19 up with 20 mins to play.

Novos stepped up a gear in the final quarter and kept Darlington pinned in with some fine kicking by Kilgore to the fore. On the back of winning the territory battle Stewart was able to kick a penalty to give us the lead back 22-21.

Then Busby could his due rewards for what was a man of the match performance with two tries from high tempo play by his team mates. One of which was converted by Stewart for a Novos win 34-21.

Thanks to Darlington for being part of a pretty entertaining game. Special mention to Big Joe Ostleton for playing his last game for darlo. I have known Joe as an opponent and as a county team mate for Durham. He is a top bloke and will be a massive miss from rugby in the North East.

Cheers to Coops for taking charge of the match. I think all the players involved would prefer it if you continued to ref next year. Your decision making was up there with the best refs we have had all year.

Thank you to the people who make the club work. So cheers to our physio's, captain fantastic Alex Littlefair, Nipper for turning up to run touch every once and a while, all the officials and team captains at the club who put in so much work on top of their normal lives. Finally, thank you to Lucy and her staff for putting up with our antics on a Saturday night !

Novos lads - at the start of the season we sat down and said we want the following :
- consolidate the first teams league position
- play in the first team cup final
- have our other three sides improve their win percentage
- enjoy our rugby

So I guess it's job done and more ! However, the reason why we are progressing as a club is because we do not sit still. Next year we will go even higher in D and N 1, we will a senior cup next season and we will continue to ensure that Novocastrians is probably the greatest amateur club in the North East.