Northern FC

1st XV drew 31 – 31 at home to Medicals. Match report thanks to Walter Ritchie:

Once again on a very sunny pleasant afternoon the spectators were treated to an entertaining game of rugby with 11 tries and a last minute equalising penalty. Northern will be disappointed to concede 17 points in the last 15 minutes where possibly game management left a little to be desired.

Northern made a fine start and after 3 minutes skipper Chalky White (who else!) scored a try after a drive by the home forwards. Then with backs and forwards combining, excellent handling put Martin Pluskal in under the posts, Cam Walker improving. After 27 minutes Ed Kell was harshly yellow carded for accidentally standing on a Medicals player lying on the ground trying to pull down a maul. This seemed to galvanise the visitors who pounced on 2 Northern errors, scoring two converted tries to lead 14 - 12 at half time.

On resumption, another excellent drive by the pack put in (yes you have guessed it!) Chalky White before Ben Smallwood replaced Liam Mullick at hooker and Gareth Little replaced Nathan Williams at full back. Northern went further ahead when a lovely pass from Gareth Little set John Tuck away on a run and from the recycled ball Chalky White went over to complete his hat-trick with a try that Cam Walker again improved. Sustained pressure from the home side resulted in a series of Medicals infringements resulting in their prop being yellow carded. From the resultant penalty line out the Northern pack controlled a 22 metre drive and Adam Mohammed scored the fifth try which Cam Walker converted.

Now leading 31-14 with only 15 minutes to play the game seemed won, however Medicals had other ideas and with the home wide defence floundering, excellent handling put their winger in for a try the corner which was converted by their fly half with a fine strike. Suddenly it was game on! Northern made their final change with Matt Hirst replacing Johnny Thandi after 70 mins but the home team then conceded a needless penalty which was kicked to the corner by Medicals. They won their line out and after a few pick and drives they breached the Northern defence to score their fourth and bonus point try. Their fly half converted with another good strike to close the deficit to 3 points.

With the clock running down, sadly Northern were again penalised from the re-start and Medicals once again kicked to the corner. This time however, the throw in was not 5 metres and Northern had the put in at the scrum. This was comfortably won but forgoing the clearing kick and electing to go for the pick and drive was the Northern choice and unfortunately this was not well executed and the fine Medicals no 8 got over the ball to force a penalty. The Medicals fly-half stroked the ball through the posts to maintain his 100 % kicking record and level the scores with the last play of the game.

Next Saturday we travel to Consett who are currently undefeated so a tremendous effort will be needed to take that record away. Hopefully having witnessed England getting to the semi final we will be up to the task so please come up to Consett and support the boys .