South Shield's 43, Novos 3's 14

A tough day in the office for the 3s squad, travelling away to South Shields with only 15 men. Kudos to the boys that showed up with some playing out of position, including winger James Douglas playing at flanker.

Shields were the first to open the scoring after some good Novos defence from Ross Cleminson who was able to take a man into touch. After multiple phases of driving towards the line they spread it to the 12 who found a gap in our defence. 5-0. Shortly after they scored again after quick work at the rucks to outnumber our boys on the far side. 10-0. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before they added another with a conversion this time taking the score to 17-0.

After a Shields line out they had another opportunity down the line but again they were dragged out of play by Harry Jones this time. After Shields saw more of the ball in our half they were able to add another to the tally through their big 8. 22-0.

Unfortunately for Vos, Christian Selkirk received a yellow card around the 25 minute mark, this meant we were now one man down in the backs. However after some good phases and some great carries from Charlie Dunbavin, Charlie Platts and Jack Bolam. We were able to get the ball to Lex Leonard who drove over the line taking about 3 men with him. Conversion converted by Jones, 22-7.

Novos were now starting to show signs of improvement and shortly after the ball got spread wide through our centres Leonard and Buick, and Will Pink was able to add a score right in the corner. Conversion added by Jones to make it 22-14. Selkirk returned shortly after at 9 but no more scores were added before half time.

After half time Novos held off Shields for 15 minutes before our 15 succumbed to their fresh legs who were able to drive to the line and pace past our backs and added 3 more tries to the board. Novos did show signs of potential tries after some solid scrumming from Ian Wood, Arthur Wallis and Vuyo Nossa-Yabantu, but unfortunately shields defence was strong and they were able to force a couple of turnovers.

Final score 14-43. An unfortunate day for our lads who are now raring for a win at Ryton next week. Up the ‘Vos!