Darlington Mowden Park 38 v 21 Bishop Auckland

The lads travelled to DMP on Friday night full of confidence on the back of a great win last week. We knew we were up against a much improved side from last season, but the lads were asked just to front up, take personal and collective responsibility, and do the basics well. We've worked hard pre-season on structure and we're hoping to see the benefit of this as the season goes on.

The lads gave their all during this game, you could not criticise their commitment. We were physical, direct in attack, and our set pieces worked really well. We let ourselves down a little in defence, our line speed wasn’t great, and we missed individual tackles.

The difference between the two sides was the DMP number 10 who had an impressive game scoring 5 tries. We scored some fantastic tries ourselves through Olly Swords-Lee and Oliver Bennett (2), with Oliver John converting each one.

We had many other opportunities to score, we just lacked a little composure in the opposition 22, but this will improve with experience.

The lads were noticeably upset at the final whistle, which to me showed passion and desire to compete. They were complimented by the opposition coaching team for their performance, it was a hard physical battle which on another day may have gone our way.

Forward of the match went to Jensen Thompson who is improving all the time and putting himself about at the breakdown, and Isaac Whittingham at 9 who had another fantastic game, controlling his forwards and for his distribution.

Things to improve on, but overall a committed performance ?