A large crowd, boosted by a ‘post wedding’ stag party from North Shields in gaily coloured shirts, enjoyed a sunny afternoon with a light breeze perfect for running rugby.
Both sides started at a frenetic pace but Westoe soon fell foul of referee Mr Stentiford who penalised them in the first two scrums for pushing too soon. Perhaps this influenced the ref for after 10 minutes he sent Westoe’s new skipper John Younghusband to the sin bin for over physical play.
Ironically 5 minutes later Mathew Mellish, who had passed a late fitness test to play at fly-half, put Westoe 3 – 0 up and then just failed from 40 metres after impressive new second row Peter Dent made an athletic catch from the kick off. Younghusband returned after his 10 minute ‘rest’ only to pass scrum half Nathan Horsfall on his way off with a yellow card having deliberately knocked on to foil a Park attack.
Thus Westoe, who had the advantage of slope and the wind, played 20 minutes of the first half with only 14 men. In the mean time Davison equalised with a penalty for Park from Horsfall’s offence but after clever recycling and passing James Clark, returning to fold after a season off for his Dentistry studies, scored wide out and Mellish added the conversion off the bar. Five minutes later Westoe were well on top after two sweeping moves with superb offloads saw Dent crash over in the corner to make the score 15 – 3. The half would have ended even more emphatically had Joe McKenzie not had the ball dislodged as he dived over the line.
Mr Stentiford decided to concentrate on punishing Westoe in the second half giving Dent a spell in the bin and awarding Percy Park a series of penalties two of which were converted giving the visitors a bonus point. He then disallowed a fine try scoring effort from Louis Hagan before ending a frustrating but successful first league home game for the Shieldsmen.
Skipper Younghusband, shamefacedly admitted that Westoe’s main problem was “Discipline, discipline, discipline!” But Main sponsor Shaun Tebble of JML was delighted with the whole experience and singled out local lad Reggie Fassa, making his debut in the centre, as his man of the match.

Ken Reay