Saturday 6th April – Durham 3rd Team Cup – Blaydon Development 21, Winlaton Saxons 25
A great game, that could have gone either way, played hard, physical but in good spirit, what an entertaining edge of the seat game right to that last whistle when Blaydon nearly won it with a break out of the 22, all in all, a great advertisement for Durham County Cup Rugby.
A game of 2 differing styles; Winlaton with a big pack and forward dominance, and Development with pace in both backs and forward that put fear into the Saxons every time they got the ball, but for a few decisions, some our own, it could have been very different, it was just a shame that someone had to lose and really hard to swallow that it was this bunch of lads. The youth with complete lack of fear to try anything from anywhere, the ability with the ball, the fitness and the never give up attitude on display in this team (with about 9 of this squad U20s) is a great sign for the future of Blaydon RFC.
We lost by a score to a team who knew their strength was big forwards and used them well, who continuously slowed the game down (can’t blame them for that!) and Blaydon with ball in hand looked capable of scoring from anywhere, just a shame we left a couple of trys out there, not capitalising on overlaps, a stray foot in touch when running a try in, penalised for what was a charge down, which instead of taking the conversion for what was a good score, we were back defending a penalty against, for a judged deliberate knock on from a Winlaton kick!!!!. To be fair to the officials, aside from yellow carding the wrong player in the first half and this decision. the officials did a good job on the day and helped make the game the spectacle it was.
It would be wrong to single anyone out, the whole squad contributed to what was a great effort and you were unlucky not to come away with the win, well done all.
Congratulations to Winton Saxons, enjoy the year, these lads will take the cup back from you next year.
Photos by Derek Turnbull: https://www.flickr.com/photos/26086313@N08/albums/
Scorers
Trys: Jak 2, Max 1
Conv: Jak 3
Squad:
1 Damien Martinez
2 Oliver Williams
3 Jake Jobey (Scott Kelly)
4 Ewan Lowry
5 Will Daniels (Matt Johnson)
6 Rob Pyle
7 Jake Armstrong
8 Andrew Steinburg
9 Jak Tuck
10 Mark McCallan
11 Craig Oliver (Tom Allway)
12 Max Nellis
13 Damien Ameer-Beg (Capt)
14 Ewan Prichard
15 James Murray (Andrew Savory)
16 Cameron Richardson
17 Brett Hanratty
18 Scott Kelly
19 Matthew Johnson
20 Adam Tunrbull
21 Tom Allway
22 Andrew Savory
