WELCOME Gateshead Rugby Club is a relatively new Club, being formed as recently as
1998 following the merger of North Durham RFC and Gateshead Fell RFC, and we are
delighted to welcome them for their first visit in their new guise to Acklam Park this afternoon. Although this is their first visit as Gateshead we used to play both North Durham and
Gateshead Fell regularly throughout the 50s, in North Durham’s case until the mid 60s.
During this time we met 13 times, winning nine of the matches and losing four. We last
met in 1964, winning 14-0; two years earlier our opponents were victorious, winning 27-15.
We met Gateshead Fell as (relatively) recently as 1973 and it is fair to say we won most of
our matches but certainly not all of them.

Gateshead earned promotion last season with a terrific record. They topped Durham/Northumberland 1 with 121 points, gaining 24 victories and 25 bonus points from
26 matches, scoring 1362 points in the process for a more than healthy points difference
of 1125. (Incidentally Darlington finished in second place, winning 25 games, one more
than Gateshead, scoring 1296 points and earning 120 points, eight more than Malton &
Norton who were promoted from Yorkshire 1. However Darlington lost the promotion play
off to Sheffield.)

This season has not yet been so rewarding for our visitors. They are bottom of the table,
having conceded 107 points in losing their opening fixtures against Sheffield (3-55 at
home) and O Brods (52-18 away). Since then they’ve steadied the ship, beating
Cleckheaton at home by 13-7 for their only win, and then losing away to O Crossleyans
(22-16), at home to Wheatley Hills (20-34), away at Percy Park (43-14) and then last week,
at Home, Gateshead suffered injury-woes which resulted in them losing three players from
the selected side and then only two minutes into the game lost a centre to ligament trouble.
Despite this they lost a close match to Durham City by 31-39. The game ebbed and flowed,
with Gateshead taking the lead, losing it and then re-taking it at 8-7; however at the break
they were 8-19 down before battling back to 21-22. City stretched the lead to 21-32 and then
24-39 before Gateshead rallied to add another 7 points. Apparently either side could have won.

LEAGUE NEWS Ross McNeill, who’d enjoyed such a very good try-scoring game against Old Brods, was declared unfit before the start of last week’s game against Percy Park, and Jamie Muncer was elevated from the Wasps as a straight replacement. What a kaleidoscope of emotions the game turned out to be! Elation, satisfaction, frustration, bitter disappointment and then relief all coursed through our veins. With the wind, the sun and the slope we played some really impressive rugby to lead 20-0 at half time. It’s fair to say that everything in the garden looked rosy, and yet…we almost lost the game. After the break Percy Park stormed back into the match and drew level at 20-20, and, even more worryingly, had a kick in front of the posts to win it right at the end. Tries from Josh Evans, who picked up a kick-ahead from Peter Wright and sped off over the line, followed by a forwards try for Richie Horton, were both converted by Peter Wright, who also added two penalties to complete the first half scoring. In fact it completed our scoring all together.

As it happened Billingham lost at Wheatley Hills, although they earned themselves two bonus points by coming back from 38-10 down to make the final score 38-33. It keeps them a point ahead of us, with Wheatley Hills only a point behind us. I will point out that we are now the only team to have lost only one game, and we have the best defensive record in the league! The bottom four clubs do seem to becoming just a little detached from the rest.
Reminder - Note that after today our league matches will KO at 2.15; Yorkshire U18s meet Durham here on 30 October at 2pm; and the Members’ Reunion will take place on 24 March, when we meet Sheffield.

OUR OTHER TEAMS The Wasps lost last week at Percy Park, but were on the back foot from the start. They travelled with only 14 players and lost Robbie Small to injury in the first couple of minutes. Manager Tilly, who pulled on a jersey for the first time for decades, reckons that with a full team it would have been a close game (with Boro victorious, of course). However both the ‘A’ team and the Lions won their games, the ‘A’s 39-5 at Stockton and the Lions 26-10 at home to Gateshead. The ‘A’s turned in a splendid performance, even without their captain, Robbie Small, and vice captain Danny Ellershaw. The forwards put in an impressive display to win a lot of ball and six tries were scored to wrap up an all-round good result. Following defeat in their opening two matches the ‘A’s have rattled up over 100 points in winning their last three games. Despite the cascade effect of players being called up for the 1st team, the Wasps and the ‘A’ team the Lions still turned out a lively side which won their third game of four.

The Colts came up against a very useful Old Brods team in the National Cup last week and were, let’s be frank, beaten by the better team. In fact I have heard it said that the Brods Colts were better than their 1st team we beat here three weeks ago. There is a paragraph on the game on page 20 and a longer version on our website. Good luck to Brods in the Cup. We hope to see them go a long way. It would be nice to say that we got knocked out by one of the top teams around! We will now go on to play in the National Plate.

JUNIORS Many deserving players miss out on representative honours for various reasons but a huge “well done” and many congratulations to those of our Junior players below:
U17s: England 7s Squad: Zach Kibirige (Commonwealth Games Gold Medal Winner).
England U18 Group: Zach Kibirige. Yorkshire U18s: Josh Burridge.

U16s: England U17s Group: Lewis Boyce.
RFU Elite Player Development Group: Jack McPhillips, Lewis Boyce, Tom Burridge,
Josh Bainbridge, Fezan Mughal, Tom Mavin, Dan Osborn.
Yorkshire U16s: Jack McPhillips, Lewis Boyce, Tom Burridge, Josh Bainbridge.
Durham U16s: Tom Mavin, Fezan Mughal, Dan Osborn, Lorcan O'Donnell.

U15s: Durham School of Rugby: Jack Willis, Aaron Lawson, Nathan Newbould, Jake
Richardson.

U14s: Yorkshire School of Rugby: Joe Gaudie, Ben Stephenson

Our U14s had the unusual pleasure on Sunday of meeting another club able to turn out two teams at the same time, Selby. Our lads won both games. Following their success in the Yorkshire Cup the U16s were victims of their own success; with 3 players on Yorkshire duty, 4 selected for Durham, 4 injured and 2 not available they had no option but to cancel their match against West. Sadly the U15s did not survive their Yorkshire Cup tie at Ilkley on Sunday, losing 39-5.

CLUB NEWS Tomorrow morning the Club will once again open at 8.30 to allow you to watch New Zealand play France in the final of the RWC in the company of your friends and colleagues. Why not come along and sample several of Ian and Linda’s fantastic bacon butties and other breakfast goodies, washed down with your favourite tipple – what could be better! Make a note that a week tomorrow, Sunday 30 October, Yorkshire U18s meet Durham here at Acklam Park, KO 2pm. This is a great opportunity to watch the cream of the counties youngsters, the stars of tomorrow. And then the following Saturday, 5 November, not only do we entertain newly-promoted Malton & Norton in a N1E league match (remember, remember, KO is at 2.15) we also have our renowned bonfire and fireworks display starting at 6.30. On Saturday 19 November there is another Race Night in the Club; see the Notice Board for information and Simon Moore for tickets. (I won’t mention our Christmas Carol sing-along on Thursday 22 December just yet – Christmas must be months away!)

REFEREE’S CORNER I am delighted to welcome Colin Tovey to Acklam Park this afternoon. Colin is a dentist from Wakefield who played his rugby as a hooker with Headingley and West Park Bramhope. He has been refereeing for 22 years and has been in charge of a Middlesbrough/Sandal match but it was about eight years ago, so I hope he enjoys the experience of our new facilities.