By Bob Walker
The great thing about watching the seconds at the moment is that you get a strong sense of the past and future of this club.
So a week after watching Nik Codd take to the field with his sons, it was great to watch Ollie Gelsthorpe pulling on the blue and white jersey. His father, Richard, was a half back with a huge boot back in the day.
There was plenty of youth in a side which fronted up well against a physical Meden Vale team which began the day just one place below us in the league. A number of Colts were making their senior debuts including Nathan Leeson (17) who came on as a replacement to join his older brother George.
To say we began well is a bit of an understatement. A long punt from Leeson senior was knocked on deep in the visitor's half and Leeson and centre Rhys Overland combined to send Tom Farrell - another teenager - sprinting to the corner to put us 5-0 up after 34 seconds. Moments later a Leeson penalty stretched the lead to eight points.
After the whirlwind start, Meden Vale began to ease their way back into the game and a sustained period of possession eventually led to a penalty which reduced the lead to 8-3.
My experience of Meden Vale is limited and not particularly positive.
It was the first club I ever trained with as a skinny 18 year old. The captain took particular delight in repeatedly and loudly criticising my reluctance to join rucks - a habit of mine which continued for the next 40 years.
I only ever played them once when I was with Newark and I seem to remember spending most of the match hiding from an overly aggressive coal miner who took a dislike to me.
That flinty edge is still there and their chances of victory took a huge blow when one of their props was given a red card for dissent.
To their credit they repeatedly put their bodies on the line as they defended a series of 5m scrums before a line out and well-coordinated maul led to a try for prop Sam Cobb.
We should really have been out of sight at half time but careless handling, mistimed passes and dropped balls butchered a number of potential tries. That trend continued in the second half although, to be fair, conditions made for difficult handling.
Another Colt - 17 year old Tom Taylor - was unfortunate not to mark his debut with a try as his dash for the line was halted by a high tackle.
Despite being a man down, Meden Vale were able to restrict us to just three points in the second half - a Leeson penalty awarded for offside after the Newark fly half had made a clean line break.
Meden Vale did have significant periods of possession but the closest they came to scoring was through a rolling maul which ended with Newark stealing the ball and a Lesson clearance kick deep back into their half.
Scrum half Ben Ennals provided his normal reliable service throughout the game and disrupted his opposite number at the base of the scrum several times. He almost crowned his performance with a well judged chip and chase in the closing moments but was tackled just as a try seemed certain.
A word too for another teenage tyro making his debut - Finn Milligan made his presence felt with a number of strong tackles, particularly in the early stages.
A satisfactory win, then, against a tough and dogged side that beat us earlier in the season.
It leaves us in second place - one point behind Southwell.
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