Our opposition have, very impressively for their age, played together as a team for a number of years. This showed from the off as Pools quickly ran in 4 tries, even before we had time to draw breath. Good work by Danny, Archie and Jake, briefly stemmed the one way traffic, only for Hartlepool to score a further 2 tries. Bishop replied with our first try of the season, a fine effort by Finn. Cameron’s good running, support by Archie took the game to Hartlepool, though Pools got a further try just before the break.

Though we didn’t score again, and Hartlepool got a further 5 tries, the second half was improved from a Bishop point of view. We were quicker at closing down, ‘on it’ for the rucks, stronger in scrum, working together in the tackle (Jake and Logan) and new player Benji put in two fantastic tackles, which were only matched by a superbly timed tackle by Archie preventing a certain try.

It was also great to see a well-practiced scrum move win the ball, passing sharply down the line to feed Liam to run the line. Some good lessons learned and full credit to Hartlepool who have some real prospects in their side. That said, Pool’s coach was full of praise for our team, commenting that despite the score, and knocks (Owen and new player Freddie) we constantly played in the right rugby spirit and show great promise for the future.

Thank you to everyone who came to support the boys’ efforts. We go again!