A close shave

The 2XV made the short hop to Stew Mel on Saturday last week.

In what is always a challenging match with Stew Mel’s depth of squad coupled with the absence of a 2XV fixture for them, you can imagine how low my heart sunk when I found out that the man I used to call great (Jim Calder) had decided to treat us to the 1XV pitch which is extremely wide and lends itself to wide expansive play at pace!

Nonetheless, Northern took to the pitch early and worked through our warm up and set pieces. Stew Mel seemed to lack any organisation.

We’d made clear our one goal today was not to let that early try in that we are so often guilty of doing.

We stayed true to that, held our defence and played the first 10 mins in their half. Northern took that elusive first score and that set the tone for the game.

The game was played at extremely high pace and it was end to end stuff. Northern were clearly more up for the game and performed well in the pack and line outs.

The backs enjoyed running with the ball and supporting the odd forward who chose to have a run.

It’s always a passionate game for me having been at Stew Mel all of my school life, to play their 2/3XV on the 1XV pitch and walk off with a bonus point win was rather special.

It never ceases to amaze me how a scratch group of players can gel so quickly and perform so well.

Credit goes to the 23 lads who stepped up and played out of their skins to get the 2XV back to winning ways. In the end, despite the 38-33 scoreline to Northern, rugby won. Both sides were knackered but had thoroughly enjoyed the close contest.

A massive thanks must also go to the Northern support who turned out in force and really helped encourage us to play.