After heavy defeats the previous two weeks, the Raiders put together a battling and well-structured game plan to narrowly defeat Sheffield Tigers second string in an evenly fought contest.
The Raiders were helped by the return of a few familiar faces to bolster their ranks, notably the lively Jack Outson and Tom McAllum at full-back and wing respectively together with Jamie Dixon adding experience at inside centre to help nurture the promising talent of Tom Robson at fly-half. The only dent in the Raiders armour being the well-earned late call-up to the 1st XV squad for Ben Blackburn meaning a shuffling of the back-row during the warm-up.

The game kicked off in damp and cold conditions and the Raiders found it impossible to get out of their own half. In fact the first 20 minutes were played out entirely in the Raiders territory with wave after wave of Sheffield pressure resisted. On 15 minutes the Sheffield kicker had a chance to put his side ahead but pulled a seemingly straight forward penalty kick wide of the posts meaning that for all the efforts from Sheffield in attack the game remained scoreless.

On 28 minutes the Raiders managed to gain field position, and with it a decent spell of possession, quick ruck recycling allowed John Clarkson to move the ball through the backs for Tom McAllum to show quick feet and good balance to score an unconverted try.
The Raiders tails were now up and they again attacked and kept the ball well for several minutes until the ball was worked through hands and skipper Finlay MaGowan's well timed pass put Jack Outson into a gap he wasn’t going to refuse and he again showed pace and skill to outstrip the covering defence, Tom Robson was successful from the tee making the half-time score 12-0 to the Raiders.

For the first 15 minutes of the second half the Raiders were dominant but were unable to find the killer play to put the score out of reach. Whilst camped deep in the Sheffield half a moment of impatience saw a big cut-out pass intercepted and the Sheffield centre went the full length of the pitch and under the home posts for a converted score, 12-7.

The Raiders regathered and again came out with more determined attacking shape and great interplay to release McAllum down the right hand flank where he showed tremendous pace to touch down in the corner on 65 minutes, 17-7.

Sheffield would not lie down however and from the kick-off, their large forwards rumbled a series of line-out mauls ever closer to the Tynedale line to score an unconverted try with just 5 minutes remaining.
The last 5 minutes Sheffield tried and tried to find the winning score but the Raiders just hung to win 17-12, with man of the match Ed Cawthorn to the fore with some typically abrasive tackles.
All in all an excellent performance by the Raiders in a tough Northern Pilot League fixture to get their season back on track.

The Raiders play Morpeth Reivers next week at home in the Candy League.