Round 2!
Moving into the second half of the season Consett travelled to Hartlepool. The home tie, earlier in the season, saw Hartlepool score three first half tries. The Consett side have suffered in recent games for not starting well! This had to be corrected.
We made only two changes to the squad, with Ben Robson & Tom Johnson moving in, the rest of the team was largely unchanged. Preparation was ok and the team managed to fire themselves up. We lost the toss and had to go downhill, so points were important.
The first half was very frustrating, we made hardwork of what seemed to be a weaker opposition than that we faced at home and beat 37-15. Consett did press, scoring some unorthodox tries. The platform for most of the positive play came from an overpowering Consett scrum. Many of the conversion and penalty opportunities were at distance into the wind, points were hard to come by from the boot. Hartlepool managed to cross the line after some real reactive play, when Consett’s decisions and defence were poor.
The second half was very different; Consett pushed well uphill; Robson & Johnson came on and made a difference. The result was a very frustrated Hartlepool side, 13 saw red after trying to ruin pretty boy, Nick Cooks looks, by booting him in the head. Of course Cook was innocent and never deserved it!!
All in all we scored six tries; Two from Cook & Ben Jones, then one each from Pendleton and Astbury. The game finished 38-5.
Saturday 17th sees Yarm visit Consett in the final league game of 2011. The squad aims to make it 14 wins and maintain the best defence in the league.