Northern IIIs 33, Bricks 3 – where were the Bricks…..

Our thanks go to:

U18s Joey & Nathan who both played great games and gave full commitment

To Winlaton Saxons, who came across to help us when their game got canned, thanks Steve, Rodders, Ayi, George, Tom, Dave, Ash, Matty & Liam

Ryan & Steven from the Development

Steven & Peter from Northern

Thacks kicked the penalty and we scored first …..

Where were the Bricks: paper cuts, snotty noses, wife’s nagging, washing the cat, every excuse under the sun came out this week, so we had 6 subs last week and we set off to Northern with only 13 players, but determine to fullfil the fixture with whatever side we had available, as the Bricks will always try to do.

Things didn’t look good when 6 Uni youngens showed up and reeled off they rugby pedigree and said they were looking for a game, unfortunately, they had walked up to the Northern IIIs coach, before we got hold of them and to be fair catching them in the changing room was the best chance we had……

Our thanks to Northern for giving us 2 players to make it 15 aside

The hi and lows:

Matty Bell entertained us in the changing room, he asked to play flanker so he could be videoed for an American Football trial, we played him prop in uncontested scrums…

Windy was left at club playing with sand, so we needed a captain and a pack leader. I gave Coatsey Captaincy and asked Strachs to lead the pack.

Horse snorted through his nostrells at me and with my usual man management approach I showed genuine concern by holding out outstretched palms. Which as Paul Winter pointed out afterwards actually means, who made the Bricks Team managment a democracy…
Strachs asked if Horse wanted to lead the forwards, Horse responded with a strong suggestion, that I had made my decision and i should ****ing stand by it, when do i not…..
So having made that comment a good part of the remainder of this match report is dedicated to Horse ……

Warm up, was a time to introduce players to each other and the highlights of the warm up was Horse doing the line out calls, bunch of numbers and ‘egg’, which confused everyone, as our line out call always do, but it seems this one wasn’t valid. At the start we only had one line out jumper, he could have just shouted front.

Coatsey started to pre game talk and called for passion and commitment, Horse took over and pointed out he always like to beat Northern as in his words they are a bunch of posh people, he then remembered two of them were on our team. This was followed by his rallying cry at halftime, when we had the Winlaton lads with us of ‘There are no closer teams than Winlaton and blaydon, well by geography anyway, we don’t like each other, but we have a common foe today, the posh people’

The fresh legs from Winlaton were a great help in the second half chasing the whippets.

Ryan did take a lot of good line out at the front

It has to be noted Phil Rayson made a tackle and its was on the opposition, not the ref.

To give him one positive statement, Horse was like a man possessed, he had a great game and was all over the park and tackling everything, that’s his one good comment, which will no
where near balance the rest.

He was also lying on the wrong side, not rolling away, tackling a touch high at time and his 10 mins rest was well overdue, by the time he went in the bin at 63 mins and abandon his team mates

Nathan’s lines of running broke the line many times and gave Northern problems all game

Joey tackled everything all day and when a Chris Oti clone came on things looked ominous, but Joey stuck to him like glue and pulled him down every time

Thacks had to leave the pitch after dislocating his thumb

We had a new player Cameron join us, on the day he had an Olympic sprinter on the wing against him, but he enjoyed the run out and will get a lot easier games than this one

Coatsey tackled his heart out and tried to barge through all the Northern team and broke himself, you just wish he’d offload to the bigger lads. Looked a bad knee injury, hopefully he’ll return for the cup match

Horse took on the kicking for touch duties, only once, golfers pay good money to get rid of slices like that

Damiens attempted fly hack has to get a mention, blind panic in defence, rather than drop on the ball, he kicks fresh air and Northern get the ball. He did redeem himself a little as him and Joey held Northern up over the line and saved a try.

Phil moved to flyhalf from fullback and it must have been a little too close to the action, the ball came out, I can only assume very hot as he immediately threw the ball in someone else’s direction. ‘Its a ball, Phil’ could be heard from the sideline…..

Rodders took some good ball at fullback and made some really good yards

Bricks (and guests) beaten convincingly, but never gave up and given the strength of the opposition, a credit to the Blaydon badge (Winlaton lads were a credit and looked good in red anyway)

Next week we return to league game again with Gateshead IIIs away, let’s see what side shows up this time…… Get a grip Bricks, cup match in a few weeks and Horse has been available for more games than most of you….

1. Peter – Northern (Ash – Winlaton)
2. Steven – Northern (Tom – Winlaton)
3. Paul
4. Horse ( Liam – Winlaton)
5. Matty (George – Winlaton)
6. Steven
7. Ryan
8. Strachs (Horse)
9. Joey
10 Coatsey (Phil Rayson)
11 Damien
12 Thacks (Dave Walton – Winlaton)
13 Nathan
14 Cameron (Ayi – Winlaton)
15 Phil Rayson (Rodders – Winlaton (well Blaydon really))