Prudhoe & Stockfield 6 V's Guisborough 34
Guisborough travelled to Prudoe & Stocksfield on the return match of the season. P&S are the only team to get anywhere near snatching a victory when they played Guis away from home earlier in the season and were lying second in the table. Guisborough started the brightest with the forwards dominating the scrum and ruck areas, but it was the home side who took the first points of the day through a penalty. Guis replied straight away after setting up a driving maul Simon Lamb was the last man to rise for Guisborough's first try and converted by James Clarke. P&S threw all they had at Guis but the defence stood up to the task in hand. P&S decided not to go empty handed and again converted a penalty. This spurred Guis's on and after some good inter play by backs and forwards, Owen Edwards scored Guis's second after a determined run, Clarke again converted. P&S were stretched at times and reverted to slowing the ball down, sometimes illegally and after several warnings the referee decided to sin bin the openside. Clarke converted the penalty and with the first half drawing to a close and Guisborough on top, James Clarke mis-timed his tackle and tripped the full back on their line and was sinbined himself. Halt time 17-6
Second half Guisborough started in much the same fashion and played some attractive rugby until a fracas errupted and players from both sides were lucky not to walk. P&S simular to the previous fixture grew in confidence and were camped on Guis's line for long periods of the half. Guisborough showed again their metal and refused to allow anyone to cross the whitewash today. The game was disrupted for about 15 minutes when the P&S prop was tackled and he sustained a nasty injury to his ankle (hope you get well soon). Pretty much from the restart the ball came to Mike McDougall who drove the ball back through the P&S defence. He off loaded to Tom Rose who sent Owen Edwards crashing through the middle of the P& S centers. Owen put in three great hand offs before popping the ball up for Paul Towers to take forward he inturn passed it onto James Clarke who by this time had made it to the P & S half. J.Bussomworth's brilliant run from fullback was picked out by Clarky. Buzzy raced away waving in and out with there fullback and winger coming in for a last ditch tackle Buzzy popped the ball over his left shoulder for the supporting Paul Towers to finish in the corner like any good openside. This was the move of the season so far. Guisborough started to play some good open rugby as P&S started to tire and some missed tackles. With open spaces starting to appear, Tom Rose, like a church mouse found the smallest of gaps and elusively evaded the defence, pinned his ears back and scored under the posts. Clarke converted with the light fading fast the ref blew early for full time final score 34-6.
Fantastic performance from all players.
Man of the match Owen Edwards,
mouse of the match Tom Rose, and fool of the day James Clarke for running a penalty down!
