This Saturday was the first round of the North East Raiders Development Series at Stockton Rugby Club.
Blackadders didn’t have enough for a full team (it was Six Nations and Carabao Cup weekend
We combined with some familiar faces from Percy Park Pirates under the team name Cyclones. A team name already in use by some of the region’s women’s players who combine to play under that name in the women’s league.
When you throw players together from various clubs it often takes time to gel but from the first game we played well and absolutely nailed “123 Cyclones!” on the first go.
We took away plenty to work on, changed the subbing for the second game, things were much better and helped the flow of the game.
Throughout the day we played better and better, even in the games we narrowly lost we felt like we performed well. The only negative on the day was Gareth’s decision to go rock every time on the Captain’s rock-paper-scissors to see who got tap off!
Moral was high all day and you could tell everyone was enjoying themselves despite the cold. People were having fun playing with different players and sometimes in different positions. It was a development tournament, so people had the opportunity to play in various positions. You never know when it might be needed
The day culminated in a 3rd /4th playoff against our good friends from Scotland, Glasgow Centurions. Despite knowing they had beaten us in the round robin we went in full of confidence, played our best game of the day and won with a cheeky try from Michael on the last play. Well done Cyclones on taking home the plate with a 3rd place finish!
On the day the Player’s Player, as voted for by all of us, was Micheal from Blackadder’s for his non stop running around and being the team’s top try scorer! The Captain’s player went to Rich from Pirates for showing consistency in the mids and organising the moves.
Special shout out to Lesley and Steve for reffing all day, literally without a break. Without people like you, competitions cannot go ahead and having good refs definitely makes it easier to play! Thanks to Cat and Steven for making the trip down and getting some awesome action shots!! Everyone loves photos.
See you all at round 2!
