Sunderland II 29-12 Middlesborough III

After a slow and sluggish warm-up with the bad weather the Sunderland team took a while to get any serious attack going, as did Middlesborough. It was Sunderland who had the better start to the game however and Duncan Bain did well to carve a line through the centre defence and nearly set Colin Wallace away for his try on his first call-up from third team action. However good tracking from boro stopped the attack, and a scrum shortly after injured the front row for Middlesborough meaning the scrums afterwards had to be uncontested.

From the reset scrum, Geehan sold the entire backline an audacious dummy to cross over untouched for Sunderland’s first try, scoring his own conversion.

Sunderland continued to apply good pressure, with Paul Hands making a good break from a scrum inside the Sunderland half and getting halfway across the pitch before he was tackled. Shortly after slick handling from the backs set Sam Jermy into the corner to score his eighth try of the season. Geehan missed the conversion.

Against the run of play Middlesborough got themselves back into the game. They had a pacy backline and there flanker and number eight orchestrated the game well. For long periods they were shackled by the colts Jonny Parker and Mick Matthews. When the backs attempted to go wide and then cut back inside they met the imposing wall of Clive Fish and James Cogden. However the thirteen managed to cross over from a poorly guarded ruck and then shortly after a horrendous bounce took the ball over Hands at fullback into the arms of the attacking winger who crossed over. The halftime whistle blew at 12-12.

In the second half Sunderland upped the ante, particularly in the forwards and with Michael Brace dictating play well at scrum half. It wasn’t long until Brace crossed from a well worked scrum move to put Sunderland back in the lead. Fish and Cogden also contributed with second half tries by powering through and over the line. Dan Hinder almost added a sixth try but knocked the ball on and fell over just shy of the line. The full time whistle blew at 29-12. Captain Fish had praise for the mixed bag team, and wanted them to continue the play into the next game, a double-header fixture against Blaydon third team.