On a beautiful, breezy autumn day at Corbridge, both teams chose to run the ball at every opportunity and served up a feast of entertaining rugby although, had either side possessed a defensive coach, I suspect there might have been much tearing out of hair.

An early drive from Hugh Holland-Creaven and Kael Horton allowed Chris Kerr to free Donald Stembridge on a trade-mark side-stepping burst that was finished off by Jedd Sansom in the corner.

The Stembridge brothers, Andy and Donald, then set off from their own line to set up the try of the match in a sweeping movement involving Callum Foxcroft, Spencer Tolley, and Sansom with New Zealand-bound Sam Richardson saying farewell via an explosive support surge.

Martyn Hutton showed power and pace from the restart to drive into the heart of the visitor's defence and the arrival of Jason Armstrong, Rory Craney, and Ed Weir as a low, running, clear-out unit produced quality ball allowing Donald Stembridge to outwit the cover from 25 metres.

A hard-working Horton managed to tackle, regain his feet, retrieve the ball and feed Donald Stembridge in a balletic movement that allowed the previous scorer to break out and turn provider for Jake Sloan to gallop over with Kerr adding the conversion.

In this purple patch for the Centurions, the opposition had taken advantage of three opportunities created by sloppy defending and, with a couple of conversions, they were well in the game at 22-19.

Ashington were a powerful, well-drilled outfit and were stung into action The last 10 minutes of the first half and first 20 minutes of the second saw them click into gear and effectively win the match in a period of dominance. Two tries at the end of the half left the score 22-31 and they then scored three well-constructed tries of their own to extend the lead to 22-50.

A shell-shocked Tynedale side might have surrendered at this point but they showed good character and resilience as they staged something of a comeback. Lewis Sparke, Hutton and Armstrong each ran strongly before Sloan found Freddy Seruisavou who darted over, Kerr converting. Donald Stembridge scored his second following a scrum. Unfortunately, Ashington were able to add another try as the game see-sawed yet again.

Seruisavou added his second clever try converted by Kerr before a charge by Weir led to Rob Earnshaw bursting over from close range. With only five minutes to go Tynedale still managed to create a couple of chances that might have led to an unlikely victory.

Dan Heppell fielded a kick near his own line, beat his opposite winger with sheer pace, bamboozled the next tackler with a glorious side step then, as the field opened up, switched inside and collided with one of his own players. With the final play of the game, veteran Andy Purvis ran from deep, chipped over and chased for the corner but the ball was scrambled into touch to mark the end of a wonderful game.