This was a tough lesson for a young Newark side that was ultimately outmuscled by a Derby second team which bore little or no resemblance to the side recently thumped by Newark at Haslam's Lane.

This time, Derby fielded the sort of 2nd string you'd expect from a club poised to join the Midlands Premier league, epitomised by fly half McGrath van Wyk who earned ten caps with Namibia as a winger and played in the 2011 World Cup. Van Wyk, returning from injury, ran the game, often setting up his hard-running running centres in midfield and relieving periods of Newark pressure with long, accurate touch finders.

That's not to say that Newark didn't play their part, because they did.

At times their defence was nothing short of heroic, which only made it more frustrating when a few missed tackles led to most of Derby's tries.

The course of the game was set from the start when Derby regained their own kick off and denied Newark any sort of possession for the next seven minutes. Brave defensive work held up several rolling mauls with Haydn Godfrey particularly prominent. But the pressure eventually told and the visitors rumbled over in the corner and a well struck conversion made it 7-0.

Newark continued to work hard in defence but handling errors gave away hard-won possession before Derby added a second. Then a spectacular midfield break by Toby Taylor eventually led to a scrum near the Derby line. Number 8 Max Spurr picked up and fed blind side winger Tom Partridge who went over in the corner to make the score 5-12.

Newark's laudable attempts to run from most areas of the field often backfired with the ball going to ground or being given away in contact but the home side's scrum more than held its own and made life uncomfortable for the Derby pack. Kash Bagga and Ben Wells made ground in midfield before a maul in the corner ended with prop Jordan Hempstead stretching out for a try to bring Newark within two points. Sadly, Newark lost Spurr and Hempstead to injuries within minutes of each other and their forceful presence was missed.

Derby's slick handling across the back line was a feature of the game and a converted try right on half time gave them a 10-19 lead at the break.

With the wind blowing directly across the pitch to no-one's advantage Newark seemed to be still well in the fight but immediately from the re-start a number of missed tackles enabled Derby's flanker to run in under the posts from some distance. From then on Derby seemed to move up a gear with a couple of powerful runners consistently making ground. No-one shirked tackling duties but Derby's ball carriers were able to stay on their feet and offload more often than not.

They'd stretched their lead to 10-45 before strong line breaks from Matt Christian and Hempstead created a try for George Bacon.

Newark never gave up and the last few minutes saw a frenetic mixture of lung-busting attack and counter attack before Derby eventually went over with the last move of the game.

As the cliche goes, you often learn more in defeat than in victory. I know I sound like a broken record, but this is a very young 2nd XV and it's been a pleasure to watch them this season. With experience they will only get better and I have no doubt that many of them will end up as 1st XV regulars.

Despite this scoreline, the future looks bright.