Blaydon Dev 52 - 33 Novos 2nd XV

A beautiful day for a game of rugby, the Super 2’s travelled to Blaydon with a strong team looking forward to the first game of the season. To start the season as they mean to go on Jonny and Sam Bird both arrived late. (Both will be fined next week). The referee also started the game as he meant to go on - with a 10 minute brief of the front row, 9 and 10.

The game started with Novos deciding to try the tactic of not tackling as Blaydon ran in two early trys to put us under pressure. However after the first 10 minutes we switched on and with the forwards securing quick ball the backs were able to slice through the Blaydon backs and start to score some points for us. At this point I don’t remember much more detail, however the game started to resemble a game of tennis where whoever had the ball tended to score. Unfortunately at the end of the game Novos were disappointed to lose the game with 2 or 3 missed opportunities to score (including VC Joe Ball standing in touch when 1 metre out from the try line).

A big mention to the Colt players who made the step-up against a good Blaydon side, especially Nick Byrne with an excellent try where he managed to slip through numerous tackles and then hold the ball on the line whilst the ref made the 50m run to catch up with play. The forwards all stuck at the game well and against most packs would have dominated and the backs ran some excellent lines to score a large number of tries. Although everyone played well and stuck at it big thanks to Harry Clarke who I thought was man of the match - although there was mention of some jug avoidance in the final few minutes and to Jack Spoor who managed to get through 65 minutes of rugby without an injury.

Onto Westoe away next week - if we can keep the same team and keep attending training we will win a lot of games this season.