WOMEN’S RUGBY
BARNARD Castle Gatorz ladies team joined Darlington Mowden Park in a winter touch league match against Ashington on Friday.
Claudia Saxby, Emma White, Rebekah Brass and Lucy Brown all travelled to Northumberland for the game, and it was worth the journey, as the team won 5-3.
Faith and Bobby both ended up on the score sheet, along with Rebekah from the Gatorz with three tries. The team defended well, and were able, at times, to put distance between themselves and Ashington.
It was a tight but exciting game, with both Barney and Darlington working in unison to drive home the win. One of our own managed to earn player of the match off the back of her performance, Rebekah Brass.
Lucy Brown
U13s
Three Barney girls, Bella, Jessie and Annabelle, joined with Bishop and Hartlepool Rovers to play against Darlington Mowden Park (DMP) under 13s. The first third was very one sided with DMP scoring repeatedly, showing their experience playing together as a team in comparison to it being only the second outing for the combined team.
The second third was noticeably better, with the girls gaining experience together, stringing passes together and scoring some tries.
The last third demonstrated a big turnaround in contrast to the beginning of the game. More confidence was shown with the girls playing with a lot of heart as a team. With a minute left of the game, Mowden ahead convincingly and advancing for another try, Bella didn’t give up and managed to produce a try saving tackle on the line.
From the ensuing scrum, the team went the full length of the field and scored on the final whistle. Annabelle ran strongly throughout the game and Jessie’s support game was magnificent. The three girls really enjoyed it and can’t wait for the next one.
Junior Suluga-Fagalilo
U18s
To conclude the afternoon’s rugby Tia Bell and Jamie Harrison joined a skilful and pacey Mowden/Bishop/
Gatorz team to take on a much bigger Hartlepool Rovers team.
Tia gave us an early scare during the warm up managing to injure her hand, with coach Andy Howard contemplating whether the pitch was jinxed given the last match Tia played in 19 months previously saw her leaving the same pitch area with a fractured collar bone.
A quick bit of first aid, and plenty of tape later, Tia just made the start of the match, promptly putting in a trademark crunching tackle to expertly take down a charging Rovers attack.
Jamie Harrison has moved up to U18s this season and bossed the tackles and rucks that the powerful Rovers team tried to put over her. The U18s held their own in the physical contest that Hartlepool Rovers brought to the middle of the field, and repeatedly used their pace to play out to the wings, scoring four converted tries to Rover’s four unconverted tries, running out 28-20 winners.
Andy Howard
U15s
Barney’s U15s travelled to Mowden Park to join up with Hartlepool Rovers and Bishop versus DMP and Blaydon, to play their first game with 15-a-side and a full size pitch game.
After the early concerns of “we haven’t done lineouts or scrums” , MowDon were the first on the scoresheet missing the conversion.
This woke up HartBarnShop who returned with their own converted try. The second half was equally competitive with both teams putting in some big tackles and showing experienced understanding of the game to exploit the gaps.
The team scored four more tries and MowDon touched down twice to leave the score line more flattering than the fantastically competitive and close game.
Des Anstey
