RETURN OF ROBBO?

Northallerton 1st team hosted high flying Sheffield Medical at Brompton Lodge and fell to a disappointing 23-30 defeat.

Captain Don Stone and selectors showed faith in the players who travelled away and fell to a narrow defeat last week, but were found wanting by a bigger pack and better drilled backs which caused North problems all afternoon. North to their credit attempted to play intelligent rugby by pinning the visitors into their own 22 whenever possible via the precise kicking of fly half Dougie Mulholland. This paid dividends in the first half and kept the scores fairly close. North’s only first half try came from the always dangerous Rhys Kilbride which was converted by Dan Luck who also slotted home 2 long range penalties. Sheffield however made good use of their backs who looked like they played together week in and week out, and ran some intelligent lines which constantly kept North on their toes. Only some excellent last ditch tackling from Dave Barrett and James Read restricted the visitors to 2 converted first half tries, both of which were scored by their impressive backs. HALF TIME 13-14

Sheffield started the second half full of gusto taking the ball into contact and recycling the ball at a remarkable speed to the supporting forwards before feeding the ball out to the backs. To try and negate this threat North started to push the boundaries of the offside law on numerous occasions before the referee eventually penalised the home team for constant infringements at the breakdown. Sheffield scored two penalties from these infringements before North learned their lesson, but the damage had already been done. With Sheffield now in the ascendancy and full of confidence they increased the pressure on the home team resulting in an unconverted try out wide from the full back. On the hour mark North were forced into making a change bringing on the 45 year old veteran and stalwart of the club, Steve Robinson for the injured Dave Barrett, who paid the price for his heroic tackling with a bruised and swollen eye/cheekbone that made him look like Sloth from The Goonies.(Hey you guys).
After only being on the field for 5 minutes Robinson found himself clean through a gap in midfield leaving him one on one with the covering full back. With the full back wondering if Robinson would jink left or right, he was suprised that Robinson just ran over him to touch down for his first try of the season. This try spurred on the opposition who added another try, this time from one of their forwards, and also another penalty to put them 30-18 up. Mulholland got a late consolation try from a quick tap penalty, leaving the final score at 23-30. Man of the match was awarded to Dan Luck.

Next week North 1sts are away to Aireborough.