The new rugby season beckons, National League 2 has been re-named National League 1, the number of clubs in the division has been increased and as a result Tynedale will be playing more games and travelling even further than last year!
Esher, London Scottish, Newbury and Otley are amongst the new fixtures to look forward to but only one of these is in the north. Blaydon of course managed to avoid the drop at the end of last season so the traditional rivalry will continue but once again it will be the only away fixture that can be called ‘local’.
If the team travels to all of their away league fixtures by road they will cover a grand total of 7,163 miles and it will take them a 134 hours – that is over 5 ½ days of continuous travel!
Two monster trips to Redruth and Launceston in Cornwall will rack up some 1,812 miles and will account for 31 of those hours. Apart from these there are 4 fixtures in the Midlands/East Anglia, 4 in the South East, 2 in Yorkshire and two in Greater Manchester.
The first league game is on 5 September and sees the team setting off for a new destination, Monks Lane, the home of Newbury Blues in Berkshire, a mere 580 mile round trip that will take about 11 hours.
It is not until September 19th that the team gets to play their first home game when the opposition will be Blackheath, the club which lays claim to being the oldest rugby club in the world without restricted membership.However, before all that happens there are 3 warm up games, at home against Stirling County (15 August), away to Melrose (22 August) and finally at home to the Newcastle Falcons development squad (29 August).