Durham City 0 - 74 Medicals

Saturday 11 February 2023
Durham City Saracens (2nds) v Medicals 2nds
Candy League Two North
(Home - The Racecourse) 1.00 pm KO
Result : Durham City 0 - 74 Medicals (HT 0 - 24)

Team Sheet :
1 Jim Earley
2 Robbie Hall
3 Andy Kirkup
4 Liam Davies
5 Tom Davies
6 Joseph Brown
7 Euan Gardiner
8 Rhys Powell
9 Dan Spence (Captain)
10 Max Blackbourne
11 Fran Silveira
12 Myron Dempsey
13 Oscar Fisher
14 Matt Jarvis
15 Max Bailey

Replacements

16 Andrew Thompson
17 Connor Turnbull

Physiotherapist None

Referee Gareth Richards (Durham Referees Society)

In losing 0 - 74 (no tries to 12) to a Medicals side who were at least as good as the side which beat City’s Saracens 7 - 55 (and with 14 men or most of the game !) at Cartington Terrace earlier in the season we were as poor as we were good the previous week at Blaydon.

In wonderfully dry, sunny, and relatively mild conditions with only a light cross-field westerly wind Medicals kicked off to the Maiden Castle end.

The first exchanges were fairly even without either side threatening their opposition’s line but when after 8 minutes City lost their own throw at an attacking line-out just outside the visitors’ 22 a missed tackle and Medicals swept up the field to score a lovely unconverted try to take a 0 - 5 lead.

More penalties to both sides punctuated the game and it wasn’t until the second quarter before Medicals scored their second try after they won their line-out on the City 22 and moved the ball from left to wide right getting over in the corner for them to add the points with a conversion that extended their lead to 0 - 12.

Two more quick scores stretched their lead to 0- 24 and then with the game then won Medicals looked certain to score a fifth try but their ball-carrier who was being chased hard by Max Blackbourne suffered a dramatic pulled hamstring just before half-time.

And so an error and penalty-strewn half came to an end and it was damage limitation time for the Saracens. Though no changes were envisaged Tom Davies was injured and replaced by Andrew Thompson

Hard though the City’s Saracens tried the second half became a procession of Medicals’ tries as they realised that the home side though fairly strong in the scrummage weren’t tackling and they had little answer to them either moving the ball wide or running straight. It was so disappointing to those supporting City on the touchline to see the home side look more and more dispirited.

So Medicals piled into it with four more tries to lead by 0- 48 five minutes into the last quarter. It then went from bad to worse as captain Dan Spence was yellow carded five metres from the Saracens line and Medicals went over for their 9th try shortly afterwards. Connor Turnbull then replaced Fran Silveira and while the home side were temporarily down to 13 players Medicals scored their 10th try and their 5th conversion to lead by 60 points. City’s Saracens then lost Robbie Hall, who had been injured earlier in the half, for the rest of the game and had to go to uncontested scrums. However the were no more scrums as Medicals then scored two more length of the field tries from City’s re-starts to make the final score 0-74.

Thus a game, in which City’s Saracens ‘wheels’ came off, ended in what could be described as shambolic style as some City players only made it to the halfway line as Medicals kicked their conversions. It was well summed up by Oscar Fisher, last week’s Man of the Match, who was playing out of position in the centre when he WhatsApped his thoughts on Sunday : ‘Yesterday was a lesson that everyone will learn from because once in a while you have to have games like that against a good side like them to see how they exploit our weaknesses (tackling) and we can learn from it’.

Perversely Jim Earley got the ‘Man of the Match’ award for his first half tackling and as he said ‘also for my scrummaging as part of being the complete package !’. On a day when the Saracens never threatened the Medicals line and many of the team didn’t cover themselves in glory, the other contenders for the award were Joseph Brown who featured with some straight first half running, and Max Blackbourne who showed his eye for a gap, Italian full-back Capuozzo-like, but the likeness soon ended as he had little or no support.

My ‘nine of the day’ were :

1. Medicals, contrary to what their name implies, didn’t have either scissors in their medical bag or a physiotherapist.

2. Perhaps Andrew Thompson was right when he said before the game that we need some mood music in the changing room.

3. The cry for water after 8 minutes when City conceded their first try and the mirth it produced with the comment that ‘in our day we were lucky to get a bite of an orange at half-time’.

4. Mick Woodley, who was in his shorts, getting his legs sun-tanned on a day when his boiler had broken down and perhaps it would have been a better game for the spectators if the referee’s car had also broken down on his journey from Redcar for as Mick said he’d come to watch a game of rugby and not to witness the sound of the referee’s whistle. Still we owe it to the referee who got to Durham by persevering with his dodgy turbo so we got a game.

5. The injured Medicals player, who was grateful to our treasurer Neil Dracup who gave him a lift back to the clubhouse and after he’d suffered a pulled hamstring, which happened as though he’d been shot.

6. And with my apologies to dog lovers but it was pity that a yappy dog which didn’t stop barking for at least the whole of the first half wasn’t shot - I’m afraid, like the way the game went, it got to me.

7. In the changing rooms after the game someone stated the ’bleedin’ obvious that ‘it was quite an even game at the start’. It was, as the score-line was 0 - 0 after all.

8. After the game hearing the first hand account from a Club member who the previous evening had been hit with the equivalent of a paint ball pellet, was then berated by a drunk (or high) woman who had crashed her car outside the Dun Cow only finally to be run over by a vehicle on Elvet Bridge.

and finally …

9. In future we should be careful about what we wish for, because as I wrote in last week’s report on the Cup-Tie at Blaydon : ‘some of the lads said at least the defeat means the Saracens won’t be facing a drubbing in the next round’. May be not in the next round of a Cup match but nevertheless City’s Saracens suffered it big style in this week’s League Match against Medicals.

We aren’t looking for a Saracens game this Saturday as our Third Team (the Cherrypickers) have a Durham County Third Teams Cup-tie ‘away’ to Durham University and DU’s Paul Baty and Mick Woodley have both said that they don’t have a problem with City fielding a combined 2nd and 3rd team against them. It’ll be a 2:15pm kick-off on the Racecourse. The next Saracens game will therefore be an away League match with Gateshead the following week on 25th February.

This week’s defeat, that is I think the first game since I’ve been writing reports, that City’s Saracens failed to score, means that this season’s Saracens playing record is :

Played : 16 Won : 9 Drawn : 1 Lost : 6 PtsF : 435 PtsA : 404 Tries for : 68 Tries against : 64.

of which the Candy League 2 North’ record is :

Played : 13 Won : 7 Drawn : 1 Lost : 5 PtsF : 321 PtsA : 331 Tries for : 50 Tries against : 51

SE Tuesday 14 February 2023