Impressive win for the U14s at Houghton

Finally the weather was kind to us and Consett U14s travelled to Houghton for their first game of 2014. With it being half term week we were missing a few players and as Daniel was still carrying an injury we only had 11 available players, with Alex Goldsmith making his debut for the team. We borrowed two players off Houghton to play 13 aside, dropping the number 8 and full back positions so we lined up with 1. Ciaran Horgan 2. Joe Hull 3. Houghton Player 4. Scott Redshaw 5. Alexander Jackson 6. Houghton Player 7. Christy Wood 9. Bradley Smith 10. Keiran Dover 11. Luke Clarke 12. Mati Gorski 13. Alex Goldsmith 14. John Brown.

I think the fact that the lads had not had a game for two months certainly had them fired up for this game and Consett signalled their intentions to attack at every opportunity from the minute the game kicked off. This paid dividends early in the game when Ciaran made good ground, running half of the length of the pitch before off-loading to Joe who broke away from the chasing defenders to score the try. A second try was added soon after with Ciaran going over the line following several phases of good forward play.

Consett were dominating the early stages of the game and went further ahead following good play from Brad off the back of a scrum, who committed two defenders to create the overlap for Dover to exploit and get his first try for the club. Another two trys were added, a good break and off-load from Joe allowing Brad to go under the posts for his first try for the club, then Joe himself adding another try with Houghton getting on the score sheet in between. Dover did well with the conversions, with two going over and the others being near misses. The half time score was 29-7 to Consett.

Houghton started the second half strong, and scored two trys in quick succession with good play from their backs and with both conversions made, Consett had to be strong defensively for the next 10 minutes as Houghton continued to attack.

Consett weathered the storm and extended the lead through trys from Joe and two for Christy, who did particularly well with one of them to stretch out and get the try when tackled. Houghton battled well throughout the game and were rewarded with a try right on the final whistle, giving Consett a 44-26 win.

The game was played in the right spirit and was a great game to watch for the spectators. A big thank you must go to the watching Consett parents, who provided the lads with fantastic support and it was also great to see Daniel cheering the lads on from the sidelines.

Now to the man of the match, we really thought it was too difficult to single anyone out of this performance as they came together really well as a team, with all the hard work they had been putting into training to link the forwards and backs better really paying off in the game. Well done lads, let’s use this performance as a spring board to continue the good improvement made so far over the remainder of the season.