After a 2 week festive season break, the Raiders welcomed Billingham Lions to Tynedale Park for the first fixture of 2020. Matches between the two sides have been extremely close in recent years with rarely more than a score separating the teams so Tynedale were expecting a tough contest. The Raiders were boosted by a number of returning players and were able to field their strongest backline of the season so far.

Tynedale kicked off in typically wintry January conditions but on an excellent and dry playing surface.
The early exchanges lived up to the expectation with some good hard running and strong tacking from both sets of players. It was Tynedale however who were able to dominate territory playing with the wind at their backs and on 8 minutes, following some excellent running lines and neat off-loading, the excellent John Clarkson was the man on hand to take the scoring pass and dive between the posts for half-back partner Rob Parker to convert, 7-0.

Billingham then had their best spell of the match and spent the next 10 minutes hammering away at the Tynedale defence and only a series of last ditch tackles and excellent turnovers denied them a score.

On 20 minutes, Tynedale played their way up the field and James Clark, looking very comfortable at full-back, glided through a gap to score, with Parker again converting for a 14-0 advantage.
Again, Billingham played with great intent and spirit and looked for the score to bring them back into the contest but were unable to convert their possession and pressure.

Just before the half, Tom Bramwell, who had a fine game in the centre, cut a neat line to cross for Tynedale's third converted score, 21-0 at half-time.

Despite the score line the Raiders knew they'd have to be at their best playing into the breeze in the second half and showed great commitment to running rugby with ball in hand.
After only 4 minutes of the second half, Tynedale extended their lead when Clarkson made a neat blindside break and fed Alex Dryden to run in from half-way, again converted by Parker for 28-0.

The Raiders then went onto score a further 4 tries in the half, 3 of which converted by the reliable boot of Parker. These came via another half-length solo score from Dryden followed by him completing his hat-trick from a Parker break and then running in his fourth try from a nicely weighted kick ahead by Clark. Tynedale's scoring was completed by Clark himself after another fine break from Bramwell.

To their full credit, Billingham continued to play until the last and secured a try in the dying moments to leave the full time score at 54-5.
There were a number of fine performances across the pitch, particularly within the backs, but the industrious Tom McCullough claimed the man of the match from the back row.

The Raiders now look forward to another home game next week to Percy Park in the Candy League.