Barnard Castle 45 v Baildon 31
Another epic cup victory for in-form Castle

The cup final win against Houghton the previous week gave Castle passage into the quarter finals of the national Papa John’s trophy where they faced Baildon from Yorkshire. Expecting a tough encounter Barney were generally able to field the same side that had lifted the cup, but with a couple of absentees.

Baildon began strongly and were soon on the scoreboard with the opening try as their outside centre ran through for the score. With the conversion successful the visitors led 0-7 in the opening minutes. Barney were quick to hit back and almost scored from the kick-off, but were foiled by a deliberate knock on. The ensuing penalty saw them held-up over the line, but they soon levelled the scores as an excellent feed by Ralph Makepeace (Sponsor: D Souter Farrier Services) saw him offload to Harry Parker (Fox and Hounds, Cotherstone) who managed to spin out of Baildon tackles to score the try to the right of the posts and with the conversion successful the scores were tied at 7-7.

Barney continued to pressure the Baildon line, and another penalty saw them edge into the lead, 10-7. Shortly afterwards the lead grew to 17-7 as Ralph dummied his way over the line for the try and was successful with the resulting conversion.

Baildon hit back with a try in the top corner and as the half-time interval approached, they reclaimed the lead when a poor clearance saw their centre claim a try under the posts to give Baildon a lead at the break, 17-19.

The start of the second half saw Castle reclaim the lead as some lovely handling saw the ball fed to Robbie Lavin (C M Marshall) who dotted down in the top left hand corner. With Ralph again on target with the tricky conversion Barney now led, 24-19.

Baildon were quick to hit back though as they broke from half-way and their flanker ran in for the converted try to enable them to edge back into the lead, 24-26. Barney were moving the ball well and some great interplay saw substitute, Talake, offload to Harry Parker who claimed his second try of the day, and another superb conversion by Ralph regained the lead for Barney, 31-26. They soon extended it further, as more excellent handling saw Elijah Delaidriti (S & RD Parker) offload to Robbie Lavin to claim his second try of the day and with another difficult conversion the lead had grown to 38-26.

There was still time for a further Barney try as Elijah Delaidriti was on the end of another great move and Ralph was once again on target with the conversion from out wide. The visitors were able to round off the scoring with a late consolation try as they took advantage of a sloppy pass from the base of a scrum to claim the try and leave the score at 45-31 at the final whistle.

After the game the opposition named Ben Parker (Potts Groundworks) as man of the match following an impressive, all action display. Barney then learnt that their semi-final opponents would be Southport so that will mean a long trek over the Pennines to visit the North-West coast on Saturday 10th May. The season is showing no signs of ending as the Barney bandwagon rolls on into May.

Nick Raper