After the long Covid lay off, competitive rugby returned to Tynedale Park with a large crowd enjoying a tight game against local rivals Ponteland.
The visitors dominated the early part of the game and after winning a scrum awarded after a lineout infringement, they took a fifth minute lead scoring out on the right hand side.
The home side were struggling to make any headway going forward and found it difficult to get out of their own half and the Ponteland defensive line were making some big tackles to prevent Tynedale making any positive impact.
Despitesome great effort to break through the opposition lines from captain Tom McCullough, Ben Robson and Jonny Cousin, the visitors held the upper hand and were rewarded on 15 mins when they broke through the Raiders defence to score a converted try.
Any possession that Tynedale could gain was scrappy and made it difficult for scrum half Liam Pitt to distribute to any great effect and on 25 mins Andy Harvey was introduced from the bench to try to use the possession to better effect. The props, Ed Craney and Liam Carmichael were being tested up front and Josh Turnbull was thwarted a few times when trying to break from the back of the scrum and wingers Seb Jansen and James Ferguson were unable to make any ground against the well organised Ponteland defence. The first half ended with the visitors leading 12 - 0.
At the break Tynedale made changes to try to turn the contest, Chris Wearmouth coming on after a long injury lay off and his extra bulk in the set piece put Tynedale on the offensive at last, now being able to attack the Ponteland line and the back line were getting better quality possession, allowing Rory Dixon, Dan Kerr, Alex Dryden and Micky Hall in the back row to make some determined breaks, but the visitors defence held them out.
After having one scoring attempt adjudged to be held up over the line and a further score ruled out for a forward pass, the Raiders did get a try grounded by Tom Dryden, the conversion was added from the reliable boot of the impressive Adam Todhunter on 70 mins leading to a exciting finale to the contest.
The final changes had been made with Owen Loughead, Owen Shield, Joe Richards and Rob Stanwix adding some fresh legs to help the tiring players on the Tynedale side, but, with the ball becoming increasingly difficult to control and time running out, the resolute Pont defence held out for a deserved victory to make progress to the next round.