Blaydon 1st Team squad update

Blaydon’s preparations for the up coming season are well under way. The club has a new look coaching staff, Micky ward is still heading the ship as our director of rugby and an ever present Lee Howgarth as 1st Team coach, also national league stalwart Andrew Baggett will combined his playing with a little bit of coaching on the side. The new addition to the staff who will bring a different slant on things is Scotland and Falcons No8 Ally Hogg, Ally will look at our attacking phase shape and help our young back rows to develop, He is a level 3 coach and along with his wealth of rugby experience help steered Ponteland to promotion two seasons ago. We are excited about having both Ally and Andrew to help ad to our already strong off field team.

On the playing front the club unfortunately lost two players at the end of last season, one being our crazy French hooker Victor, another utility back Rhodri Adamson. Victor has returned to France to future his career as a social worker where Rhodri has move to study a master’s degree and will play rugby for Coventry next season.

As with most years our focus has been on retention of our top quality players, Luckily for us this season all our senior players have re-signed, Forwards like Robbie Kalbraier, Jason Smithson, Chris Wearmouth, Gavin Jones, Keith Laughlin and Trevor Davison and backs like Tom Grimes, Tom Rock, Frazer Wilson, Tom Bramwell and Andrew Baggett. We also have a good bunch of young players who have decided to stay with us such as Jack Beckwith, Jack Davison and James Cooney. Couple guys such as Tom Small returning from injury, young lads like Andrew Richardson, Ant Davies and David Kilpatrick all guys re-signing and all the other guys working so hard to get into the first team, we are looking in a decent place at present.