One of our first games this season was to Redcar. They were an established team, we were blooding new players, and we were soundly beaten. Yet, Redcar’s excellent coach, Duncan, gave our new team lots of encouragement and we were most impressed by his coaching referee style.

Duncan’s team played us again today and were met by a very different Bishop side, that again had another new player, Billy, making his debut. Though Redcar ran in the first try, we came back strongly, beginning with a strong James tackle, good running by Ollie and then a Finn try.

Better followed with George surging through to take Bishop ahead, and Archie’s running saw us score again through Finn. Excitement amongst the home crowd grew, but the game settled, with some good running by Samuel and anticipation by Lucca and support by Danny. Redcar came back into it, picking up a loose ball, to score their second try. We quickly responded, with good work by William then Cameron surging, led Liam to scoop up the loose ball and run in our fourth try.

Redcar’s coach admitted his team needed to think their way out of the deficit with passing rather than running and were much stronger in the second half as we faded and we didn’t dominate the scrums and rucks as we had done previously.

Despite some ‘in the thick of it’ play by the pack, organising by Ollie and strong tackling by Joshua, Jake and James, Redcar ran in a further 2 tries to level the game. Only determined work by Bishop prevented Redcar from scoring a winning try.

Given that we’d been soundly beaten by the same team just 5 months previously, a draw was an excellent result, underlining great progress, yet again.