After a 90 minute adventure to our first ever fixture at Sheffield Tigers ground we were greeted with more wild weather – thankfully this time it was just a strong cross-wind and not the driving rain we had last week.

Placed on the edge of the Peak District and with a strong reputation Tigers coming before them the game was widely expected to be tough.
After a good warm-up to get the trip out of Newark’s legs the team began to execute the game-plan very well indeed and drove strongly in the ruck across the pitch. But as predicted of boys from the home of Steel, their tackling was strong and despite numerous Newark waves of attacks the Sheffield defence held strong.

The breakdown once again offered area’s of improvement for Newark as they were repeatedly (sometimes harshly) penalised for the ‘basics’ of not-releasing and playing the ball on the floor.

But whilst all this was going on the Backs were beginning to get the measure of the conditions and the ball began to stick in the hands and it was no surprise when after 8 minutes Smorgie W finished off a short-side move to open Newark’s account.

A tense period then ensued when the game was finely poised with Tigers driving strongly themselves so when Luke H broke the deadlock with a try on 18 minutes Newark breathed a sigh of relief and with a 12-0 lead they seemingly began to relax and took the game by the scruff of its neck.

Further tries quickly followed from Arthur R and Mateus D to make it 0-26 to Newark before Tigers breached the line on the stroke of half-time now which when converted made it 7-26 at the break.

With the changes rung at half-time, what ensued for the remainder of the match (until the last 10 minutes) was the just rewards of all the efforts the team put in on the training pitch. Every time Newark got the ball they looked dangerous and when they didn’t have it, they tackled in a ferocious but organised manner – playing as a real team.

Newark ran riot in the second half with further tries from Smorgie W (2), Sam R, Henry A and Harry W (2) but to their credit Sheffield never gave up and were not a bad side – it would just seem that Newark are just getting better and better which is good news as the stern tests of Doncaster and Oadby Wyggs are coming up in the bleak midwinter.

The final score was 7-62 to Newark.

Next week is a new fixture AWAY against Worksop College – ko 11.05.

Written by David Hayle
Checked by Lorna Swain