Berwick Colts 17 v Tynedale Colts 18
TYNEDALE Colts travelled to Berwick on Saturday with a young team looking for its first win in the Border League. The first five minutes were fast and furious with both sides looking for weaknesses.
After ten minutes from a Tynedale scrum just inside the Berwick half, scrum half Jack Lambert passed the ball out to fly half James Reekie. Inside centre Matty Horricks stepped inside as if he was getting the pass. Reekie threw a long pass out to Andrew Oliver who ran into a huge gap in the Berwick centre, to sprint in under the posts for the first try. The conversion was missed.
From the restart Berwick put Tynedale under pressure. The Tynedale defence held well but, after some fast handling in the Berwick back line, they finally broke through to score a converted try.
Tynedale's heads did't drop. Number eight Jeff Gillespy, picked the ball from a scrum on the half way line. A ruck formed on the Berwick 22 and Tynedale forwards drove over to leave the ball for Lambert to pass to Reekie. Reekie saw a gap and ran though to score and this time Lambert converted.
Back Berwick came again, with some strong running from their fowards resulting in a maul on the Tynedale goal line which Berwick drove over for a converted try to take the lead into halftime 14-12.
It was a hard fought second half but both sides found it hard to break the defenders down. It was late in the half when Berwick were caught offside just inside the ten metre line. Reekie stroked the ball sweetly right between the posts, giving Tynedale the lead with ten minutes remaining.
Again Berwick came back at Tynedale, the pressure resulting in Berwick winning a penalty and converting it to give them the lead. The lead had changed five times and, with only five minutes remaining, it looked like Tynedale were again just going to miss out at the end of the game.
Then, in the last two minutes, in exactly the same position, Berwick gave away another penalty. Reekie again converted to make the score 17-18 to Tynedale. A few minutes of injury time and the whistle blew to give Tynedale Colts their first win of the season in the Border League.