This weekend the U11’s faced Consett in probably our favourite fixture of the year. Both teams have always been very evenly matched and a fantastic bunch of coaches, kids and parents.

Consett opened the scoring with a great individual try early on, but when Bishop remembered how to tackle, we picked our first score up from Conall, with a quick pick and go finding space down the blindside. From that point, Bishop picked up and seemed, to the unbiased Bishop coaching staff, to have the upper hand for most of the match. It was hard to keep track of all the tries, but notable efforts were James’ score in his first ever match, Tom’s effort from a driving maul and a classic individual effort from Ben who seemed to think he needed to sidestep all the Consett players before scoring.

The match was genuinely a joy to watch and the players have developed massively from last season. It’s actually starting to look like a rugby match!

Tackling was strong and at the right height, rucking was quality and we even won a couple of turnovers. There were loads of moments of individual skill, too many to mention here, but everyone had a fantastic match. One area to work on would be kicking, but given it’s just been introduced to the game this year, it wasn’t too bad.

Well done to all the parents and players, and thank you to Consett who were fantastic as always, we look forward to our next meeting.