Tough opponents...

What an eventful festival, it had a bit of everything! We played four games against Blaydon team 1 and team 2, Stockton and Houghton team 2 in a variety of weather conditions, none of which were warm.

We played some tough opponents and our players suffered a lot of high tackles, elbows, clothes lines, hand-offs, retaliations and even hair pulling - as usual, our players were a credit to the club, never retaliating and continued to be fair and applied themselves well.

Try scorers for the day were: Joe 10, Aiden 4, Nathan 2 and Henry 1. Joe was on fire today when he got the ball, Stockton even gave a fist pump when he was substituted as he couldn't be contained.

Special mention for Nathan who scored two tries on his debut. His straight running and strong tackles showed he is listening and learning fast. What a start.

Tackles: most of the team started off slowly, forgetting how to get a good hold of the opposition and bring them to the ground. As the morning went on we just kept getting better. We are not the biggest team yet special credit goes to Dan and Oliver Sh who made some excellent tackles against much bigger opposition.

Highlight of the day was having Hayden from Blaydon, TV's ‘Little Dec’, play on our team - he was an excellent little player. It was a little distracting for our boys however as they were trying to check him out through his scrum cap to see if it really was him!

• Raging Bull of the day: Henry who took it upon himself to lead the charge at the restarts quickly closing down the opposition
• Most committed player: Peter - despite getting lost and apparently going over the same bridge seven times, Anita and Peter persevered and got to the ground in time for Peter to play in the last two games. Although he started late Peter was raring to go and got stuck straight in
• Today’s tough nut: Aiden. He got studded twice and suffered some cuts yet continued tackling and scoring with very little fuss.

Thanks from Mike to all the parents who made the long trip to Ryton - it wasn't the best of days for weather but the support really was appreciated.