A GREAT START

A warm evening under the floodlights. A good crowd and some entertaining, flowing rugby.
What could be better?

Well, running four tries past Paviors at home, that's what.

This was a highly encouraging start to a new chapter of 2nd XV rugby.

Changes brought in by the RFU this season allow 2nd teams to join leagues rather than the previous merit table/pennant system.

So now we are in Counties 3 Midlands East - North East.

Not a league that easily trips off the tongue but it means our 2nds now play in the ninth tier of English rugby. It also means they'll be playing nine 1st XV teams.

This was a classic encounter against one of our traditional "enemies" and it was a victory built on ferocious tackling with the highly impressive fly half George Leeson pulling the strings in attack.

It didn't start well, though. With fewer than two minutes on the clock a half break and an offload by the Paviors own number 10 led to a try and a conversion near the sticks.
But Leeson regularly pushed them back - with one outstanding 50/22 kick a particular highlight.

A Pavs attack then broke down in midfield and Newark quickly worked the ball left. Ollie Cooke made the initial break before passing to full back Scott Edmed who stepped inside to race under the posts. Scrum half Alex O'Dell converted to level the score at 7-7.

Leeson, clearly playing with a passion against his old club, then made a break with a neat side step before offloading to Ollie Cook who scored Newark's second try. O'Delll converted. The scrum half then landed a tricky kick after Pavs were penalised for holding on to make the score 17-7.

If the definition of madness truly is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results then Paviors are as crazy as they come. In the corresponding fixture last season they got on the wrong side of the ref who was also in charge of this game as well.
The same thing happened with the visitors and their coaching staff regularly taking issue with some of the young referee's decisions. At half time their skipper could be seen deep in conversation with the match official as he continued to argue his case.

Before then, some great work at the breakdown from Will Alexander and Cooke led to a penalty near the 10m line which Leeson, inevitably, struck beautifully to make it 20-7 at the break.

Things got worse for Pavs when a high tackle on the hard-running Kent Birch led to a yellow card. Birch had caused problems throughout with his direct running and staunch defence.

The game then entered a brief scrappy period with a few untidy line outs before the highlight of the match. Another Paviors attack came to grief through sloppy passing and some swift passes among the Newark forwards -with number eight Dave Garland and hooker Haydn Godfrey prominent - eventually led to Edmed racing to the far right corner for his second.

Despite the continuing complaints from the visitors , the ref was also penalising Newark for a variety of offences with winger Tom Partridge receiving a yellow for killing the ball.

Even so, Newark scored their fourth through Chris Tate after another long clearance kick and some more accurate passing. O'Dell again converted to make the final score 32-7.

Paviors, as you'd expect, never gave up the fight and their strong runners had plenty of opportunities to make inroads. They proved a handful to bring down but Newark's defence was simply outstanding - typified by a string of tackles on their own line which ended with a Paviors forward being held up as he lunged for the try.

For the visitors, it was a tough result to take and they clearly felt hard done by, although I suspect the penalty count was more even than they would believe.

A great start then. But make no mistake, Paviors will be fired up for the return fixture at Burntstump.

Tries: Scott Edmed (2) , Ollie Cooke, Chris Tate. Conversions: O'Dell (3), Penalties: O'Dell , George Leeson.