From the Director’s Chair – Blaydon Vs Ilkley

I would like to give a warm welcome to our visitors Ilkley for today’s home clash. We had a first team week off last week to rest the walking wounded but our second team had a big fixture against Novos. It was one of the strongest second teams Blaydon have been able to field for some time which shows the strength in depth we are now developing within this young squad. After a scrappy opening our boys settled in to our high tempo style of play really challenging the opposition and starting to run the try’s in. We ended up 81-0 winners, but the most pleasing thing for me was that we were ruthless enough to keep them scoreless. It was a job well done. Shame the England lads could not get the correct result but it just shows how tight the International games are these days. Everyone I spoke to had a differing opinion of the “was it a try or not” incident. But it really look like Eddie Jones and his team have got over their blip and are back on the road building for the World Cup. A special mention must go to old Blaydon boy Mark Wilson for 2 stunning performances for England and hopefully many more to come.

Blaydon recently experienced a similar blip losing 3 games in a row, but the boys reacted extremely well in our last home game versus Wirral. We started extremely well, straight out of the blocks with 3 well worked scores, two from Dan Marshall and another well worked team score finished off by Jack Appleton. Wirral then built in confidence with simple but effective play which piggy backed them up the field. They came back making a real game of it but we showed huge character to see the game off at the end with great team defence eventually winning 29-24. A win in the bag, a good confidence builder and a springboard for us pushing on until the Xmas break.

Hope you enjoy the game, then watch the international with us in the bar.

Kaizen