First win of the season
A sunny day in Barnard Castle and I don’t think I have ever been able to say that.
We were kicking up the hill and for the first 10 mins or so could not get our hands on the ball but some excellent defence managed to keep the score level. On another move Barney looked to stretch us out wide but the pass was intercepted by Matty Cooper in our 25 who looked as though he could go the whole way but Nathan Turner appeared and took the pass off Matty and scored under the posts converted by Scott so 7-0 up. From the kick off Matty caught the ball and we moved the ball through the hands and Kellan scored under the posts again converted by Scott 14-0 up
The question was would we implode as we did last week against Rockliff but with some fantastic defence we managed to hold out until half time. By this time Tom McGowan was off with an injured tattoo and was replaced by Charlie Head whose parents had driven from Surrey to watch the game TK going to the second row and Charlie to number 8
Barney brought on Junior at 10 and within a few minutes he had changed the game with 2 short inside passes to the prop who scored twice now 14 all.
Nerves were a bit fraught on the touch line but Scott kicked a penalty to put us back in the lead at 17-14. Our scrum was dominant by now but from a line out a pass was intercepted in by the Barney backs who looked suspiciously offside but ended up scoring in corner and it was converted so 21-17 down
Would it be deja-vu all over again? Not this time as back we came and Cameron appeared to score as he very cleverly touched the ball down against the post the referee was unsighted and gave a knock on and then a penalty to Barney as we appeared to say something to him.
When it looked as though we were never going to score with a combination of bad passing and some mistakes through inexperience we put a series of attacks together and Connor Anderson ran a great line to score again converted by Scott to put us 24-21 ahead.
It was a lead which we never looked like losing and with great relief the final whistle went to give us our first win of the season and I think our first win at Barney.
MOM was TK although Barney gave it to Scott which was met with cries of disbelief from our team.
What I thought was fantastic was the support that we had on the touchline from people who had travelled down. To me it says something that even down the bottom end of the league we had more supporters than the home team I believe.
Usual high jinks on the bus on the way back but onwards and upwards
Rovers away next week in a league and cup double header
Tom Tate