Poor habbits let Development team down

Novos travelled to Whitley Bay Rockcliff for a league encounter which on paper looked to be a winnable game for Novos.

The squad again was much changed with the return of Tommy Wilson Snr after his world cup antics in New Zealand, Gus Walker and Mike Shackelton also returned to add much needed experance to the back line.

The rockcliff team was much changed to the one Novos narroly lost to 3 weeks ago.

As seams to be the way with the Development team this season they didn’t show up for the first 15 minutes allowing rockcliff to race into a 15-0 lead, helped by the large number of penalties Novos kept giving away.

Novos eventually woke up and started putting the tackles in and competing for the ball in the loose. The scrums were a real issue which wasn’t helped by Adam Longstaff sin binning for repeated offences.

During the time Adam was off the pitch rockcliff scored again to take a 20-0 half time lead.

At half time Simon Trudley came on for Dom Watkins and a minute into the second half Nick Walker came on for Longstaff once he returned from the bin.

Walkers introduction steadied the scrums and brought much needed steel to the team, within minutes of his introduction Walker crashed over from short distance to score. Angus Walker missed the conversion attempt in the swirling wind.

It took the rockcliff fly half 4 attempts to make the kick off reach 10 meters, from the eventual restart Dave Henry playing as a back row collected the ball set off on a run before kicking over the top to rockcliff fly half who kicked for touch.

Darren McCrory went off with a dead leg longstaff came back on in the back row with Henry moving to scrum half.

Novos began to put Rockcliff under sustained pressure for the next 10 minutes, George Spires came on to replace the impressive Lee Pease.

From good ball just in the rockcliff half Novos fly half Gus Walker had a drop goal attempt land just short.

Rockcliff then had a man sent to the bin for the new style of tackle punching a player in the head.

Eventually Novos scored again when a big miss pass from Walker found Spires who ran 30 meters to score in the corner, the conversion was missed.

In the final 10 minutes Henry went off with a blood injury Dom Watkins came back on at scrum half.

Some poor defending allowed Rockcliff to score two more tries to end the game 30-10.

the game showed that Novos need to work on their fitness and be ready at the start of a game not at half time.

Man of the Match goes to Richard Seed for not missing a tackle all day and carrying the ball well.