Houghton 15 v Barnard Castle 22
We won the Cup! Castle triumph in extra-time epic.

A near full strength Barney travelled to Houghton for the County Intermediate Cup Final knowing that they would be in for a closely fought battle, as both sides had managed a win apiece from their league fixtures earlier in the season. Barney made the journey with a huge contingent of travelling supporters to cheer them on from the touchline.

Castle began brightly and were first on the scoreboard with a well-taken penalty by fly-half Ralph Makepeace (Sponsor: D Souter Farrier Services). The remainder of the first half was a keenly contested affair with Barney perhaps having a slight edge and with both sides putting their bodies on the line with superb defensive tackles on a bone-hard pitch. At half time Barney held a narrow lead, 0-3.

Castle began the second half a man down following a yellow card at the end of the first half and Houghton were able to take advantage, with their scrum half going over from close range for the first try of the game following a series of penalties close to the Barney line. With the conversion successful Houghton were in the lead 7- 3 and Barney were reduced to 13 players following a second yellow card.

Barney coped brilliantly with the numerical disadvantage and mounted a series of attacks to try and close the gap. Eventually their efforts paid off as a series of attacking penalties close to Houghton’s try line saw a home player yellow-carded and finally came the well-deserved try as scrum half Dan Richardson (John Lowery) offloaded to Jon Lucas (S Patterson and M Coates) who was running a great support line and crashed over for the score. With Ralph on target with the conversion Barney now led, 7-10.

With the game entering the final stages Castle looked to have scored the try to seal the win as James Peareth (Peareth Financial) drove over from close range to extend the lead to 7-15. With time running out Houghton needed two scores to avoid defeat, but they soon narrowed the gap with a well-taken penalty.

As the game entered the final minute Barney looked to have done enough to secure victory as Houghton mounted a series of desperate attacks that Barney were able to repel with some huge defensive hits. With the final play of normal time, however, the dam broke and Houghton scored a try in the corner to level things up at 15- 15 much to the dismay of the large travelling contingent of Barney spectators. The tough conversion was missed to the relief of Barney’s players and supporters and the game went into 20 minutes of extra time.
The first half of the extra time period saw Castle a man down following a yellow card in the run up to the Houghton try, but once again the remaining 14 players raised their game admirably and saw out the first half with honours still even.

In the second half of the extra time period Barney enjoyed more of the possession and they finally got their reward with 2 minutes remaining as once again James Peareth powered over from close range to the joy of barney supporters, and with Ralph Makepeace landing the difficult conversion the lead grew to 15-22.

With the clock ticking Castle’s defence was resolute as Houghton tried desperately to save the game, but Barney held on and Sam Errington was able to boot the ball into touch to start the wild celebrations. This was a fantastic performance by the whole squad, everyone contributed to the win, and it would be impossible to single out any one player as man of the match.

Commiserations to Houghton who were great hosts and battled hard throughout. The game was a double-header, and victory means that Barney have also progressed to the quarter-final of the National Papa John’s Trophy and they now know that they will have a home tie versus Baildon from Yorkshire at 3pm next Saturday 3rd May, but in the meantime, they will rightly celebrate and enjoy this epic victory.

Nick Raper