An under-18, made his debut off the bench

Midlands One East

Spalding 14 Newark 8

Newark endured defeat after a Jonny Statham try early in the second half had raised hopes of victory at Spalding on Saturday.

Statham struck after some good approach play had opened the Spalding defence to put Newark 8-7 up in this Midlands One East encounter.

But Spalding quickly responded to Newark’s lead by scoring a try from a move down the narrow side to regain a lead they had taken in the 20th minute when they scored the first of their two tries.

A penalty by Danny Coen just before half-time left Spalding leading only 7-3 at the end of an eventful first half which brought a neck injury for lock Richard Primett and the sin binning of Ed Collishaw.

This prompted more upheaval to a team which had undergone a rejig in the run up to the match when they lost captain Chris Tate, hooker Ian Tomlinson and prop Devan Priestley to illness.

This gave Rob Dunning a rare chance in the first team at prop while bench duties were taken up at short notice by veteran front rower Dunc Dawson. Scrum-half Matt Clark took over the captaincy.

Tate’s place at full-back went to Mark Byrom whose switch from centre brought a call up for Will Britten. During the absence of Primett, Will Machin, an under-18, made his debut off the bench.

Despite all the problems, Newark had the better of the final 20 minutes and could easily have cut Spalding’s advantage but failed to convert pressure into points.

Team:
Mark Byrom; Britten, Badley, Collishaw, Statham; Danny Coen, Matt Clark (capt); Dunning, Barnsdale, Gray, Primett, Evans, Neil Clark, Fotheringham, Price.

Subs: Dawson, Machin, Edlin.

Try: Statham.

Penalty goal: Coen.

Rob Wildman