Under 13s Battle to no Avail

Bishop Auckland U13 10 Darlington Mowden Park U13 62

Bishop Auckland Under 13s hosted Darlington Mowden Park for their first home match of the season. A number of players from Stockton made up the numbers for the Bishop side, who only had 12 players available. Mowden scored almost straight from the kick-off and soon added another try. Bishop fought back and moved into Mowden territory, Lloyd Purser then scored a try to give Bishop some hope. Mowden then upped the pressure and used their greater pace to outflank their opponents and run in 5 more tries to make the score 47 – 5 at half time.

In the second half, Bishop fought back despite conceding a try early in the half. The rucking and mauling improved with Chris Coates, Sunny Maan and Josh Leonard putting themselves about together with Curtis Hall and Ben Hoggart. Anth Young made some powerful runs. Good work by Lloyd Purser saw him tackled short of the line, but Sam McIvor was on hand to take the ball and score in the corner. The half-backs, Sean Pinel and Alex Bielby played their part, but the ball was not finding its way to Ben Oliver on the wing. As the game reached its end, Mowden took a short lineout and their prop headed towards the line, only to be well tackled by Toby Oliver, the supporting players were able to add the try and another followed on the final whistle to make the score 62 – 10 to the visitors.

This was one of the best teams that Bishop will play this season and they main problem was their lack of speed in the backs, a problem when playing on a full-sized pitch.

Submitted by Stuart McIvor on 6 Oct 09