There was great excitement in the U13’s camp with the fantastic news that Ryton had a team, so the girls would not only be playing Bishop Auckland. With a squad of 9 thanks to two Morpeth and one Tynedale girl, the girls were looking to put up a strong fight in their first game against Bishop. Novos dominated early on with excellent powerful runs with plenty of offloading allowing a couple of quick tries in on the wing from Nayanna and Leigha. Bishop fought back quickly though and scored after some barnstorming runs to break through our tackles. A small period where each team exchanged tries ensued until some handy snatching of loose ball from both Jenny and Hope enabled Leigha and Nayanna to sprint down the wing to extend Novos lead. In the second half with the sun behind us and a tiring Bishop team, Novos piled on the pressure scoring a brace more tries to finish 40-20. Leigha and Nayanna sharing the spoils except for Hope who scored an excellent solo try from the half way line.

A five minute break before our second game against Ryton. This was unknown territory for the girls so we really needed to be on our game. Ryton clearly showed their skill and pace straight off with a dazzling couple of runs to get them their first score. Novos fought back hard but with some loose ball Ryton were able to capitalise and score again. Novos then built some phases of play, again with some great offloading from the ground (fantastic considering we haven’t done it in training!!). The continued pressure worked as Novos got on the scorecard thanks to a couple of good runs from Paige who offloaded to allow Hope to score. The game was tight as each team scored consecutively. As the girls tired the tries came easily often from first phase. Final score 40-35 according to the ref although I thought it was 7 tries a piece!

As Ryton were down a player, tackle machine Alina played another game for Ryton against Bishop. By the time this game was over the girls had suitable cooled down and so it was decided to call it a day! The girls showed tremendous fight and intensity in the games today. Our offloading in the tackle was fantastic which allowed for some great free flowing rugby! Thanks must be given to the Ryton coach and referee who did a stellar job!

The Under 15’s had a much tougher competition ahead of them with Sunderland, Morpeth and Horden all well-established teams. Our girls made up of a mix of Novos, Rockcliff and Blyth always play with a tremendous amount of heart and given our relative inexperience they always front up to do the biz! Special mention to Becky Pitchford for her first rugby game. She put in a couple of awesome tackles and very nearly scored a try in the third game if she hadn’t been caught 10m out from the try line. Hopefully in games to come we can get the ball to this pacey back a bit more often! As usual Paige and Jess were tackling demons along with Rachel from Rockcliff. It’s great to see girls playing with such intensity and putting their bodies on the line. I’m sure it’ll come to fruition when we get our first win! Zoe packed down in the scrums and held her own brilliantly. This team is full of potential and if we can get some joint training with the Blyth girls we will be able to develop much more of our game.