Sunderland 3rdxv win against North Shields 2ndxv

Sunderland 3rds vs North Shields 2nds.

Facing a decent opposition we fielded a team of young, old and older players, at least seven of our players were in their 40's, 50's and 60's. With age comes experience and arthritis!!

We started strong and retained a lot of possession and with hard work Nelly broke the deadlock scoring on 20 minutes after a great run through the shields line.

10 minutes later the vets showed the young uns how to play when Brian Evergreen picked up a loose ball from a scrum 40 yards out, offloading to captain Rob Stormont who showed a turn of pace to link up with Wordy who scored a well deserved second try.

North shields hadn't thrown the towel in just yet and came back to score a try from a quick tap which caught our defence sleeping.

10 - 7 at half time.

We made a number of changes during the second half with a strong bench to bring on.

Shields kept asking questions of our defence but I feel we won the territory battle and defended well. Having a couple of good chances to score we couldn't quite get the tries we desired. Maybe this was due to a lot of our players being unfamiliar with each other, who knows?

Replacement scrum half Andy Lowes scored the only try of the half after our forwards put great pressure on the Shields line, but selflessly pulled the ball back centimetres out to maintain possession at keenly contested ruck and tackle area.

Final score 17 - 7

Man of the match went to Wordy - great line out work, support play, ball carrying and defence.

Big high points of the day were seeing old and new players turn out, two eighteen year old props and New Tom on the wing play for the first time.

Its also the largest amount of neoprene I've seen on the pitch ever seen on.one pitch!