Saturday 12th January – Blaydon V Lymm, From the Director’s Chair

Happy New Year.

Hope you all had a great Christmas break. Our last outing at home was a very tough contest versus local rivals Alnwick. In tricky conditions our lads played an exceptional brand of expansive hard running rugby against some big boys. After 80 mins we came out convincing winners through hard work not only on the day but throughout the last 6 weeks previously setting ourselves hard targets in training and in games.

Moving on to last week’s game at Hull after a well deserved rest, was going to be the toughest test of the season. We started the game exactly how we wanted with a early try from Jack Davidson’s hard running breaking a tackle and rounding the full back. Hull were always going to have their period in the game when they got their big pack rumbling and they did for 15 mins either side of the half. They scored a well constructed try through their powerful 12 but other than that did not threaten. Hulls experienced 10 slotted 3 pens after half time but other than that the game was evenly balanced. Blaydon’s pack then started dominating using their driving lineout creating sustained opportunities for Captain Keith Laughlin to put us right back in the game. Going into the last 10 mins 19-17 down we had full belief that we would come away with the win. Great impacts off the bench from Dan Taylor and Harry Borthwick moving the ball wider got our danger runners into the game and Borthwick breaking a tackle in our own half nearly went all the way. Two phases later a Blaydon walk in was only halted by an unfortunate handling error. Hull won but we could not of asked anymore from the lads. They gave everything and only lost by the smallest of margins.
We are still in the hunt and eager to chase down top spot, taking each game as it comes knowing we have to be at our best week in week out to achieve our end goal for the season supported by our fans.
Lymm today offer a different challenge but one equally as tough. We have to be focused for the full 80 mins and hopefully come away with the win.

Kaizen.