Blaydon maintain winning form with another home victory – Blaydon 13, Rosslyn Park 0

For the second week in succession Blaydon took on high-flying visitors from London and again sent them packing with little to show for their efforts.

If the home defence was tremendous against Esher then yesterday it was simply magnificent. And it had to be for the visitors had an abundance of possession from start to finish with Blaydon permanently fighting a rear-guard action.

Going into the final 10 minutes they held a six points lead and then in the most glorious of endings worked their way up-field for Gavin Jones to touch down from a line-out drive.

It all began well enough with Brett Connon landing a 6th minute penalty but once Park got their hands on the ball it hardly left them for the rest of the half. It was backs to the wall but Blaydon survived, even when Rhodri Adamson was unluckily in the sin-bin.

The second period then turned out to be a carbon copy of the first with Connon putting over a second penalty 3 minutes in and then Park on non-stop attack.

Cracks finally began to appear in the visitors armoury and a couple of shoddy clearances directly into touch opened the door for Blaydon to cross half-way for the first time in the period.

They drove on towards the 22 and from a penalty award kicked for the corner to set up a rolling maul, whereupon Park infringed again. This time the line-out was much closer to the corner and a mighty roar went up when Jones went over.

Connon added the extras and Blaydon were 13 points up with not much time left. The visitors were visibly rattled (and who could blame them) and Blaydon went on to record a famous victory.

John Brennan