Southport 29 v Barnard Castle 12
Epic season ends in Semi Final loss

Having overcome Baildon in the quarter final the previous week, Castle made the long trek over the Pennines to Southport in the semi-final of the national Papa John’s trophy. They were warmly welcomed by their hosts on a hot and sunny day that was more suited to cricket than rugby.
Barney were able to field a strong squad and were only missing a couple of regulars as they sought to extend another brilliant cup run and qualify for the final against representatives from the Midands at Doncaster next weekend.

Castle didn’t know what to expect from their opponents, but Southport hit the ground running on a hard and sun-baked, dusty pitch and opened the scoring when their flanker seized on a loose ball and raced through a gap to score a try under the posts. With the easy conversion successful the hosts had the early lead, 7-0.

Southport looked likely to extend their lead a few minutes later, but their winger dropped the ball with the try line at his mercy, however they were quick to make amends and went over from a lineout with a catch and drive to extend the lead to 12-0.

As the half went on Castle came more into the game, but they encountered resolute Southport defence and try as the might they couldn’t find a way through and the half ended at 12-0 to the home side.

Barney began the second half brightly, but Southport were next on the scoreboard as their excellent full-back fielded a kick and chipped ahead with the ball popping up nicely for him off the bone-hard pitch to enable him to run in for the try. The conversion extended the lead to 19-0.

Castle rang the changes and introduced Sam Errington at scrum-half in a bid to spark a revival, but Southport were once again next on the scoresheet with another drive following a lineout and with Castle claiming an infringement they went over in the corner, with the conversion extending the lead to 26-0.

Barney appeared down and out, but then enjoyed their best spell of the game and finally unlocked the Southport defence when an offload by Sam Errington saw Ralph Makepeace (Sponsor: D Souter Farrier Services) take advantage and run in for the try, which he duly converted to take the score to 26-7.

With 5 minutes to go Barney scored again as Ben Parker (Potts Groundworks) went over in the corner following some excellent handling to briefly raise hopes of an unlikely victory and replacement Sam Watson (Autobarn Ltd) raised hopes further with an excellent break that was stopped just short of the line, but Southport settled their nerves with a penalty to leave the score at 29-12 as the final whistle sounded.
This was another excellent performance from this very young Castle team who have enjoyed a superb season with the County Cup win and a respectable league finish to go with this run through to the semi-final of a national cup competition.

Southport were the better side on the day but will have benefitted from home advantage and the fact that they had enjoyed a walkover and a weekend off at the quarter final stage whilst Barney had a tough encounter against Baildon the previous weekend, which took its toll on tired bodies. The opposition rightly named Barney’s skipper Sam Bell (Dickinson Agricultural) as their man of the match as once again he led from the front and took the game to Southport at every opportunity.

The club would like to offer sincere thanks to the Old Boys, Potts Groundworks and Bridgegate Tyres for sponsoring the bus that transported players and supporters across to the North-West coast. Southport were excellent, warm and friendly hosts and deserved the win and we wish them well for next week’s final versus Coalville from Leicestershire.

That’s the end of the season for Castle and their achievements will be celebrated at the Senior Presentation night on 31st May. They will now look forward to what promises to be an exciting 2025/6 season ahead, which will begin with warm up games in August before the league season proper begins again in September.

Nick Raper