This was one of those strange days where players were crying on during the morning. Ian Flounders announced he would be along after he had 'dropped some logs'; must have been a euphemism. Chris Sewell preferred us to Seaham, the enigma that is Evo popped up for a game and Carl Robinson turned up. Which was handy as Muller was called up to the 1st XV at the last minute and Carl slotted into stand off.

We took the lead when Davy Carroll crashed over and Josh Healey kicked a magnificent touch line conversion. Read that slowly. Good hands gave Glyn Hewitt a sniff of the line and he raced over for an unconverted try to put us 12-0 up. Horden reduced our lead to 12-5 when a spell of forward pressure paid off with an unconverted try. Josh kept the scoreboard ticking over in our favour with a penalty 15-5. Then Evo (on for Carl) broke out of our 22 and the ball was moved out to Glyn who chipped his winger and won the race to dive on the ball amongst the mole hills in the in goal area for a fine try. 20-5. We then won a lineout just inside Horden's 22 and drove them to their own line with Davy Carroll being last up with the ball. Davy got his hat trick with a tap penalty just before half time.

Rovers Heughers 30 - 5 Horden 2nds

At half time we made a number of changes to give everyone game time. Most noteworthy of these was to get Bailey Flounders onto the pitch. Bailey turned 17 during the week and this was his first senior game. He immediately announced his presence with a cracking tackle that sent a Horden attacker backwards. We had used the driving lineout to good effect and Baggs was the next player to score from this ploy and put us ahead 30-10. He was also the first player under 45 years of age to score for us so far. Horden were not lying down and got some reward with a try down the wing 35-10. We had the final say with another lineout drive with Chirpy being the one to dot the ball down this time.

Rovers Heughers 40 - 10 Horden 2nds

This was a decent game for us to get back into league action. It is not often that a Horden pack is out muscled but that is what happened. While Horden gave us problems in the scrums we were in the ascendancy in the lineout and around the park. If we had stuck to the game plan of moving Horden around more we might well have added to our tally.

It was good to see Connor White back with a Rovers shirt on and he was our best lineout option when he came on. Evo was probably the best player on the pitch and looked injury free (always a dodgy thing to say with Evo mind). Josh Healey had a very good around game - with his kicking being an unexpected bonus. The popular choice for Vue Cinema man of the match though was Bailey Flounders. He never took a step backwards, was one of the first to the breakdown and was not fazed at all by playing against a large Horden pack. Well done Bailey!

Squad

Swallow, Hewitt, Addison, Monty (c), Hann, Robinson, Chirpy, Healey, M Saunders, Carroll, Ryan, Groom, Barker, Wilson, Baggs

Interchanges - Sewell, Evens, Robinson, White, R Flounders, I Flounders, B Flounders (dunno what the collective name for a group of Flounders is. Any thoughts?)

Next week we are home to Stew Grazier's unbeaten table toppers Consett 2nds. Looking forward to it.