WELCOME It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all back to your favourite spot on the touchline. Yes, I know we're in the middle of summer, and it seems as though last season has only just finished, yet here we are, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, not for another pre-season friendly but joining battle with Sheffield in the preliminary round of the Yorkshire Cup. These early Cup games are yet another attempt by the County to breathe new life into the competition and keep interest in the Cup alive; in recent years problems with teams dropping out and not fulfilling fixtures have seriously threatened it's future.

And so we are pleased to welcome back to Acklam Park our old friends and adversaries from Sheffield. I'm sure they face similar problems to us with the availability – or non availability – of players at this time of year, but I'm equally sure we'll both give our all in an effort to get through to the next round, where the winner of the Morley v Cleckheaton tie awaits. Last season our visitors finished in fifth place, having beaten us 25-10 at Abbeydale Park and 20-11 here. Let us hope we can reverse those results today.

THE NEW SEASON I am also pleased to welcome our new coaching team for the coming campaign, headed by Tom Argument and Iain Bradford. They have penned a few words for your information which appear on page 9. We also have in Rob Bellerby and Dave Hinchley a new Captain and Vice Captain at the helm. What we now need is your support and encouragement. We have lost a few players – to retirement and job mobility – but attendance at pre-season training (including extra sessions on Saturday mornings would you believe!) has been excellent; please show the guys a bit of patience as the team beds down into what we all hope will be a winning combination. We also lost last week's fixture when Barnsley cried off, giving us no opportunity for match play before today; we do have a friendly at Billingham next week before our league season begins here against Alnwick.

Our Lions couldn't wait for the official start of the season. Fired up by the success of their namesakes out in Australia they arranged to kick off their season two weeks ago at home to South Tyneside College. Despite it being at the height of the summer holidays 22 lads turned out, including, promisingly, three new faces. A big “thank you” to all of them, and to Adam Hughes, who travelled from York to officiate. Eager for further challenges they then arranged a home game against Stockton; they narrowly lost the match, although Fingers, who had already scored one try, another effort disgracefully disallowed (his words, said with a smile!) which could have been the winning score. And what of Tollesby? After the problems caused by the weather at the start of last season I am pleased to report that the pitches are in excellent condition; those back at HQ look in pretty good nick too, so a well deserved “thank you” is also due to groundsman Steve for his tireless efforts. Oh, the result of the match? A comfortable win for the Lions.

The Scrum: Incidentally the IRB's global trial of the “crouch, bind, set” scrum engagement sequence, aimed at enhancing player welfare by reducing impact on engagement, will apply to all levels of rugby, including youth players. Props will now be expected to crouch on the referee’s call, bind using their outside arm after the referee has called "bind". The front rows will maintain the bind until the referee calls “set”. At that point, the two packs will engage. The referee will then wait until the set piece is stable before instructing the scrum-half to put the ball into the scrum straight with a call of “yes nine”. This sequence follows a £500,000 three-year examination by an independent group of scrum experts. And now to the bane of my life – uncontested scrums! We know that the referee can order uncontested scrums when no suitable front row replacement is available, but in another (little-publicised) alteration to the regulations the referee can now order uncontested scrums if he deems it unsafe for any other reason to start or continue the match with contested scrums. Does that mean that packs getting tortured at scrums now have the answer...

A WORD OR TWO ABOUT LAST SEASON It's fair to say we glanced nervously over our shoulders at the league table a few times in the second half of the season before four wins from five matches in March/April, scoring 31 tries in the process and playing scintillating rugby against Old Crossleyans and Morpeth in particular, saw us home and dry, ten points clear of Keighley in that dreaded 12th place. Elsewhere throughout the Club, allow me the indulgence of of repeating that on several weekends we turned out six senior teams, this at a time of dwindling playing numbers generally, with some clubs struggling to field not just a second team but occasionally a first team. Our thanks and appreciation must go to Bernie Coyne, Eddie Scott and their cohorts for all their efforts.

MATTERS OF THE HEART Since we last gathered here there have been several pieces of heart warming news. Simon Moore and Tracy got married – and spent what seemed like forever on honeymoon in Canada – and Richie Horton is engaged to Kate, daughter of Peter Lamballe. We wish them all the happiness in the world. There's more good news - Claire, wife of Richie's cousin Benn Horton, gave birth to Lacey last Sunday, a sister for daughter Tyler, who is really excited – and Martin Featherstone and Delene are now the proud parents of a beautiful bouncing daughter, Isla. Incidentally Benn had a real scare earlier this month. He woke up in the middle of the night with his heart beating at more than twice it's usual rate, unable to breathe properly or walk more than a few steps, so Claire called for an ambulance. His condition puzzled the doctors; they stopped and restarted his heart to get it back on even keel and gave him an injection which took 20 minutes; Benn has had to undergo further tests in an attempt to get to the bottom of the problem. And Terry Wesson was also in hospital at the beginning of the month to have a new valve fitted in his heart, but is up and about again. Our very best wishes to one and all.

JUNIORS Congratulations to Jack Willis, Mark's boy, who became the GB Youth Triathlon Champion at the British Triathlon Championships Liverpool, which took place on Saturday 13 July with age-group, paratriathlon and elite races all taking place on the same day and then featured on Sunday 28 July on Channel 4 in its morning sports slot. Jack represented GB in the European triathlon relays in Holland on 27 June and was also selected to represent England at the European youth fell running championships in France on 6/7 July. Not surprisingly, according to dad Mark, Jack's particular strength is running up hills. A year ago Jack finished fourth out of 16 juniors in the Home International Fell Running Race, competing as an U15 in an U16 race.. He has also won the Roseberry Topping race twice, the first time as a 13 year old! Whisper it, he has also played first team cricket for Middlesbrough. He's quite an athlete and we wish him well in his future exploits.

Congratulations also to the boys, parents and grandparents of our U15s squad who stormed to success in the town's premier 5k road race. James Pennington, Nathan O'Boyle and Luke Mohan-Hickson all finished well in the event. Parents David Horton and grandparents Kenny Salkeld and Barry Emmerson were as inspirational as ever. Biggest respect goes out to 'Big Jack' for fulfilling every rugby players' dream; he pushed himself so hard that he threw up on the Riverside Football Pitch just as he crossed the finishing line. Plan for next year is that we will open up the 5k to all our junior teams and encourage all minis to participate in the 2k fun run. If we make it a sponsored event we will put half towards junior/mini funds and donate the other half to a local charity. Type or copy & paste your content here.....