Saturday 18th February, Blaydon Bricks 36, Consett IIIs 17
Bricks take 9 points from doubleheader win against Consett IIIs, with a good win, more than 4 trys and lending a player to Consett. Our thanks to Keith Oliver who played for Consett and took some stick from one of our side line, who seemed to think he had rejoined Consett.
This game so nearly didn’t happen, text went out and loads of unavailability came back, in addition to the massive injured list we had:
• Tom and Toddy selected for the 3rds for the cup squad, both thankfully came back when Ryton conceded the cup tie.
• Goggle, Liam and Cookie pretended to have a friend and went to an imaginary bachelor do somewhere
• Brett who was confirming availability Friday suddenly found himself in London on Saturday morning
• Lowsey declared a sabbatical, he’s going to need to play a lot more games before he’s due a sabbatical
• Others…, working, away, come on people you have all the summer to go away.
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So decision made 11:30am to proceed with the game and a good decision it was, not only as we won, but the game was played in a good spirit with everyone playing for each other.
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Scores:
Scott, Craig O, Tom 2, Stracks, Joe Melia
Conversions: Scott 2, Damien A 1
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Thanks to Stu Reay who took most of the photos, i keep forgetting to take any: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26086313%40N08/collections/
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Highs and Lows:
• I told the side Keith O was doing us a favour and playing for them, he would have the red socks on, after looking at their faces I felt the need to re-iterate to be courteous to him, not trample all over him
• I found Joe Melia hiding in our changing rooms just before the game hoping the 3s didn’t notice so he could play for us, he did turn up on the side line with 20mins to go to get on.
• Tom and Keith were all over the park in defence making good tackles and going forward
• James and Stracks made big yards with ball in hand
• Toddy was everywhere, including battering Stracks nose
• Richard Pike played scrumhalf for us, he occasionally forgot he was supposed to stay out but he ran the show well and fed forwards standing off. He did misread a call and passed the ball to Grumpy on the hoof with all the big lads going the other way, much to Grumpy’s surprise who didn’t get far, but did retain the ball to start over, priceless to see from the sideline.
• Game plan was 12/13 man rugby, they had some quick looking backs and we had a much bigger pack, you’ll never believe it, they actually followed the game plan, for a while anyway.
• Tom bashed over for 2 good trys, one from Paul D taking the ball at the 10yd line and running it back, offloading to Stracks, to James and Tom stole the glory
• Game started great, 4 trys up, forwards taking on phase after phase… looking good
• Craig Oliver finished off a good score, in only his second game for the Bricks.
• We stripped a couple of balls in contact and stole the ball, everyone seem to try and go for a strip instead of a tackle and Consett started to break through tackles.
• Then we started to run across the field, get isolated, lose ball and Consett got their heads up and ran in 3 trys
• Half time conversation was, back to basics, batter them with wave after wave, go back to switching the ball back to the forwards and we starved Consett backs of the ball.
• Chester made some good breaks
• Scott ran the show from 10
• It wouldn’t be an official match report if there wasn’t a negative comment on Keith, Catching, going off his feet and giving away penalties, etc. etc. so I guess we’ll define this as an unofficial report as he had a great game, I don’t remember him dropping the ball or giving away a penalty, but the guys or Keith may well put me right. Did find out in the bar, he was hung over………..
• Grumpy throw the ball in as Keith was propping and insisted he never got done for not straight, only explanation is the ref needs new glasses…..
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Team:
1. Keith Winter
2. Grumpy
3. Tom Hirst
4. James Knox
5. Mark Todd
6. Ian Bennie (Joe Melia)
7. Damien S
8. Stacks
9. Richard Pike
10. Scott Henderson
11. Paul D
12. Damien A
13. Steven D
14. Craig Oliver
15. Mickey B