Sat 18 Jan 2020
It was a perfect January day, as Gos travelled the short journey to high-flying Ponteland on Saturday. We were looking for a much improved performance against the team, who had walloped us back in September. As usual we had several possible players not available for various reasons (in fact, we had more not available than available!!). Nevertheless we had a strongish looking side turning out, under the watchful eye of head coach,Ian Moralee and his co-coach, Callum Chick from the Falcons.
Playing down the slight slope, the hosts kicked off and were soon to show their pedigree at this Level 8 fixture. Some stout defence from Gos was undermined with a penalty awarded against us under the posts and this led to the ball being moved quickly wide for centre, Will Herford to cross. With fly-half, Owen Reed's conversion we were 0-7 down after 5 minutes. Once again some continued strong defence from Gos was undone after 20 minutes, when another penalty by the posts saw Reed converting to leave the score 0-10. In the 31st minute the robust home hooker, Sean Bettison, finished off a fine Pont move under the posts - again converted by Reed - for a scoreline of 0-17. However, from the kick-off Gos were to pressure the home defence with lock, "C J" Camplejohn, providing a looping pass, which gave some room on the outside for left-winger, Lewis Marshall, to take advantage and speed over in the corner. The try was too far out for Dan Slater to convert (5-17). Gos were going well, but couldn't find the elusive next try and in the last minute of the half, Pont's right winger, Connor White, went speeding over the line for Reed to convert and leave the half-time score at 5-24.
The second-half was soon to follow a similar pattern, as, in the third minute, Will Herford was to cross wide out for the accurate boot of Reed to convert and make the score (5-31). Having lost the influence of No 8, James Willis because of a shoulder stinger earlier, Gos kept applying pressure on Pont, only for our season-long habit of loosing the ball with the final pass to lead lock, Ben Stewart, to run from his own 22 and score at the other end of the field! This time Reed was to miss with his attempted conversion on 10 minutes (5-36). The pattern stayed the same with replacement, Lawrence Mew, powering over - again from distance - but again Reed missed the conversion on 21 minutes (5-41). With their heads never dropping, Gos kept up some good, but unrewarded play. However, on 34 minutes Stewart was to repeat his earlier feat by scoring on the right. No conversion was to leave the final score at 5-46. A big improvement from Gos, but still nothing to show for all the endeavour!!
Next Saturday there is no 1st XV game in D&N2, but we hope for the improvement to continue and the Phoenix to rise at home against the doughty Hartlepool on February 1st.
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