Little winning run comes to an end

We welcomed Carlisle to Belle Vue on Sunday morning for our first game against them this season. The away fixture was cancelled back in November last year due to us not having enough players.

How times have changed, we had the majority of our players available for the first time in a couple of weeks and even had a couple of subs for this game! Again we had a new player on show with Daniel Smith playing his first game for the team. Consett lined up; 1.Connall Ruddick 2.Joe Hull 3. Ciaran Horgan 4.Scott Redshaw 5.Alexander Jackson 6.Sam Veevers 7.Bradley Smith 8.Christy Wood 9.Nathan Williamson 10.Kieran Dover (c) 11.Luke Clarke 12.Daniel Smith 13.Michael Justice 14.John Brown 15. Dillan Telford with the replacements being Alex Goldsmith and Tommy Tennant.

Consett started the game brightly and had a lot of early possession until Carlisle turned the ball over and got the ball out to their backs to get the first try of the game. Carlisle had some big, powerful and pacey backs and added a further two trys in the first half, with two conversions made to make the half time score 0-19.

The second half went much the same way as the first, with Consett not being able to make the most of some good possession and Carlisle punishing us when the chances came their way adding a further four trys in the second half, with one conversion made to make the scoreline 0-41.

There was a lot more positives to takes from this game, we more than matched their powerful pack of forwards and the backs are gaining in confidence with every game, making some good driving runs and try saving tackles between them. Carlisle were a good, well drilled team but I do think the game was a lot closer than the final score suggested and we competed well as a team from start to finish. The fact that the majority of their trys came from running around us instead of through us shows how well we battled throughout the game.

This game shows how far the lads have come on in a very short space of time. The players that have joined the team since the away game at Carlisle was cancelled have been putting performances in lately that does not reflect their lack of rugby experience at this level. We are starting to get competition for places now and that can only be a good thing for the team and if the lads keep putting the hard work into training and games then this group of lads can really push on.

Although all of the lads played their part in this performance, man of the match this week goes to Brad, his work rate throughout the game was brilliant as was his tackling and driving runs. A big thank you again from us all to the great support we received, with a special mention to Sandra for her constant 'Come on Consett' shouts for both our lads and the U15s!