A season which began with a victory over Paviors on a sunny September evening at Kelham Road finally ended in a Spring rainstorm against a powerful Scunthorpe side which turned the screw in the second half.

The scoreline suggests a bit of a thumping and while this was certainly our worst result of a long season, the picture was slightly more nuanced than that.

Indeed, the score was just 5-0 at half time and that try only came after the referee missed the ball squirting out of the side of a scrum, allowing Scunthorpe to kick it downfield. Newark actually dominated the first quarter of the match, denying Scunthorpe any meaningful possession.

The second half was a different story. Scunthorpe played to their strengths, getting the ball to the right areas of the pitch and using their big, strong runners to punch holes in our 22. This was the first time this season that Newark's set piece was put under sustained pressure and as the cliche goes - it's hard to play rugby without the ball. Our cause was not helped by the loss of a number of players through injury.

But even when the match was clearly lost Newark kept tackling - demonstrating great courage in defence against a side which grew in confidence. It would have been easy to simply give up but that never happened. At one stage there was an unseemly melee but no-one took a backward step against bigger opponents.

So, a huge disappointment at going out of the cup but this was the first time we have lost since a narrow 18-17 defeat at Southwell back in November. We should also remember that Scunthorpe have had a good season against highly placed sides. Their club plays in a higher league than ours and a number of their 1st XV squad are on contracts.

I've written elsewhere about the Second XV's achievements this season and how much of the credit should go to skipper Ben Wells who has moulded the team into a band of brothers who play hard for each other.

On Saturday Ben went above and beyond the cause for his team and club, leading his mates out just the day after the loss of his father. It takes a special kind of player and a man to do that.

On the playing front, with promotion comes new challenges next season. There will, almost inevitably, be tough games and results against 1st XV sides who will want to make a point against us. But if we can keep this squad together there's every chance we can write a new chapter in the club's history.

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