DOUGIE THROWS AWAY A FREE BARREL

Happy new year to you all.

Northallerton 1st team entertained 2nd from top, Castleford at home and put in a valiant effort before falling to a 19-25 defeat.
North suffered a couple of last minute cry offs and with reserve players not answering their phones, it left the coach frantically looking for able replacements. Luckily, North were able to call on veteran Ed Bulman and a, as usual, less than 100% fit Adam Massey to fill the void.
North started strongly and on the front foot, with Bulman to the fore early on. North used their larger forwards to draw defenders in before releasing pacey(?) backs Dan Luck and Marc Waldon.
North took the lead through flanker Tom Young after 15 minutes following a line out steal from Lee Peake. Soon after, Bulman saw the opposing full back had gone walkabout, so kicked through into a large empty space, and gathered his own kick to score between the posts. Greg Aspin with the conversion gave North a 12-0 lead after 15 minutes.
Castleford then started to get back into the game, and were one of the few teams in this league to out work North in the scrum. This caused North numerous problems as they were unable to get any clean ball or clear their lines. Castleford got their just reward with two quick tries before half time to level the scores after 40 minutes.
In the second half, North gave a first outing to new player Jamie Frazier, who is a ex semi pro basketball player. Frazier looked very good in spells, out muscling a couple of players, but in need of match practice in the loose.
Despite this and the introduction of Massey for Martin Dennison and Waldon, North were still struggling to put any flowing rugby together. Castleford though could only punish North with a long range penalty. North galvanised themselves again and pressed the Castleford try line for five full minutes before pressing the self destruct button. With the try line beckoning, Dougie Mulholland attempted a 20 metre looping, miss pass, for it to be intercepted by the Cas full back, who raced the entire length of the pitch to score. Now ten points behind, North started to lose their composure and gave away a couple of silly penalties. Castleford converted one to take a insurmountable 13 point lead. North gave themselves a glimmer of hope two minutes from the end with a brilliant opportunistic try from scrum half Patrick Hebblethwaite, who threw a ridiculous dummy, which his opposing number bought, before racing away to score. Aspin slotted home the conversion to give North only a bonus losing point for their valiant efforts.
Castleford voted unanimously their man of the match was - DOUGIE MULHOLLAND.

Next week North 1sts travel to Rotherham Phoenix, 2:15pm kick off. - And if the coach is reading this Jed Bainbridge is available to play 10!

Northallerton 2nd team continued their good form with a 12-15 win away at Darlington Bulls.
North seemed very disjointed in the first half and trailed 12-3 at the break, with only a Tom Rennison penalty registering.
In the second half North upped their game with Paul Dennison leading from the front, and were rewarded with a try apiece for utility forwards Martin Chuckles and Chris Macaneany, who had another fine display. Tom Rennison added just the one conversion. Man of the match for the third game on the trot was awarded to Chris Hustler.
Next week North 2nd team are away at Billingham 3rds.

Northallerton 3rd team travelled to play Seaton Carew with club stalwart Nicholas 'Tank' Bainbridge captaining the team for his son Jed's first ever senior game, at the age of 17. A good all round team effort enabled North to grind out a very impressive 12-24 win.
As with the 2nd team, North started slowly and disorganised, and were trailing 10-0 at half time.
In the second half the captaining skills of Bainbridge Snr came to the fore as he changed the team around slightly to combine his sons pinpoint passing and kicking ability with the pace of both wingers. This paid dividends with tries from Jack Whittaker, Ben England and two tries for Michael Snowdon. Bainbridge Jnr capped a impressive debut with 2 conversions.
Hopefully Tank has now found his true vocation and will continue captaining the 3rds for many years to come.
Next week North 3rds are awaiting fixture confirmation due to the Hunt Ball.

Sent from my iPad H Johnson