Tynedale Centurions 0 Morpeth Edwardians 50
The two sides met for the third time this season, this time to contest the Northumberland Number Three County Cup final at Ashington Rugby Club.The Centurions had the better of the opening exchanges with a crunching tackle by captain Jake Sloan setting the tone for the hard contest to follow. The Morpeth winger taking a few minutes to recover from the force of the hit.
The Centurions had an ideal opportunity to open the scoring when they kicked a penalty to the five metre line, then, despite Joe Johnson winning the resulting line out, they were penalized for foul play and Morpeth cleared their lines.The Tynedale side still kept the upper hand and the front row of Phil Scandle Ollie Murrell and Owen Shield were winning good ball from the set piece and Oscar Caudle, playing at the back of the scrum, was breaking through the Morpeth defence with some powerful running off the set piece. Unfortunately the pressure did not lead to a score.
On 26 minutes the Morpeth side scored the vital first try and added the conversion. Five minutes later they extended their lead with a second converted try.Tynedale then went close to reducing the lead when Ben Common and Ryan Laverty both just failed to cross the line and then winger Robbie Nixon just failed to hold onto a pass with the try line agonisingly close. The next score went to Morpeth and then they added a penalty after a couple of decisions seemed to go against the Centurions, this gave the Edwardians a 22 - 0 interval lead in what had been an even contest, despite the score line suggesting otherwise.
Tynedale started brightly in the second period and with scrum half Andy Harvey looking lively and making some great little darting runs and full back Rory Dixon coming into the line to make some yards with his jinking line breaking runs and Mark Smailes making some great turnover tackles and Charlie Rutherford making some yards with powerful breaks, it was all to no avail when Morpeth broke away to score a further converted try.
Injuries and fatigue then began to take its toll on the hard working Tynedale side, with Owen Loughead having replaced Caudle at half time playing well albeit out of position at Flanker, the replacements were coming on at regular intervals, unfortunately the bench had no back replacements due to injuries and unavailability. Players were required to play out of position and this was to end the game as a contest, for despite Callum Foxcroft continuing to take great lineout ball consistently, the Centurions could not use the possession effectively. With Joe Johnson moving to full back Ray Regan moved on to hooker and made a couple of good driving runs, The front row was bolstered by Andy Neal, doing well at the set piece, with Dave Nicholls impressing in the second row. The evergreen Ian Charlton had joined from the bench and was playing on the left wing and unfortunately could not hang on to the final pass which would have given Tynedale some fitting reward for their contribution to the contest.
By now the Centurion side were feeling the effects of their hard graft and Morpeth ran in three further tries all converted to give the score line a one sided look, which had not been a true reflection on the game which had been keenly contested throughout with the Centurions giving a good account of themselves and, having been weakened by the absence of key players prior to the game, the strength of the squad was stretched to the limit and still shows the improvements made since the start of the season from the side that struggled to turn out a starting fifteen at times, and, will surely comeback from this disappointment to fulfil their potential in the coming years.