Newton Aycliffe Rugby played their second game of the season so far against South Shields at home. Many thanks to Shields for making the journey which was difficult as they have had to take the same decision as NARUFC and withdraw from the leagues. Many thanks to the four players from Sedgefield Saxons who came along to help out. Once again the Rugby prevails.
After some hasty rearranging of the squad, due to unavailability, this turned out to be a tougher outing than the final score suggested for all concerned, but once again both teams approached this game with great spirit.
It was great to be able to have full scrummaging and lineout and both teams relished the competition and this made for a very frantic, lively and confrontational game which was awesome to watch.
Newton Aycliffe opened the scoring with a well boshed over try by Dale Patterson after only 3 minutes. Luke Tinkler converted, thanks to having the correctly coloured kicking tee this week. Minutes later and not to be outdone, Owain ‘Ram Man’ Jones followed Dale’s lead and also bullied his way over the line. Unfortunately this was unconverted as Tinks pulled a fetlock and limped off the pitch.
The game settled down and there were further tries by Sam North (converted by Paul Richardson on loan from the Dallas Cowboys) and Phil Greenbank (unconverted) led us into a 24-0 half time lead.
The second half was unfortunately a much more open affair in terms of the scoring and saw Aycliffe open the play up a little more and this resulted in 3 more unanswered tries for Newton Aycliffe. After a near 30 metre run through the opposition by Jordan ‘Robocop’ Saunders, he stepped and offloaded to Sam North who sprinted in to score and converted his own try to boot.
Chris Richards then came on to the pitch out of retirement and following the most ridiculous drop goal restart followed by a kick to touch (neither of which resembled what they were supposed to) made amends by falling over the line. For some reason Doug Wardle attempted a drop goal conversion nearly as awesome as Chris Richards attempt! Needless to say it missed.
Feeling left out, Phill Sangster decided to join in the fun and trundled over after a mazy bullocking run over 5 metres to make the score 41-0 at this stage. Sam North followed by adding his third try of the day.
South Shields started to put some well worked phases together and were rewarded by an uncoverted try. After a decidedly dodgy venture out of retirement Chris Richards confused the opposition, his team mates and probably even himself and eventually went over for a try which he converted himself! ‘Scrapper’ Richards was back.
Mikey Dunn launched himself into action at this point, well he jumped up in the air in front of an oncoming South Shield prop in a movement that can be headlined only as ‘Flying Wombat stops locomotion’! Dusting himself off he then helped himself to a try which was converted by Gaz Parsonage. Uncoverted tries by ‘Ugly’ Luke Crossen, Owain ‘Ram Man’ Jones and Sam ‘Pike’ McIvor in quick succession saw the game end in a 75-5 win for Newton Aycliffe.
Thanks again, must go to South Shields for making the journey. And, once again, also to the continued support and links with Sedgefield Rugby Club who provided several players.
#itsasllabouttherugby