Bishop Auckland Under 9’s made the short trip to Kingston Park to play, arguably, some of their best rugby to date. Having been placed on pitch 2 with Carlisle 1, Northern 1 and Westoe, the two blues were up for a challenge.

The first match took place, after showing our respect for Remembrance Day, against Carlisle. Having never taken the trip over the North Pennines, we were unsure what to expect from the opposition, however, what transpired was a comfortable victory for Bishop. Dakota lead the line by making sure that she was the first player to go for each tackle allowing for a quick turnover and a great pass to Sonny to ensure the first try of the day was scored by Bishop. After this the floodgates opened and three more tries were scored on the bounce. Carlisle hit back with a dogged effort to ensure they went 5-4 up. This ignited a fire from within the 7 Bishop players and 4 more tries were scored by Cassian, Dakota, Thor and Jaxon to land on a final score of 8-5 in Bishop Auckland’s favour.

Our second match against Northern RFC started with a great run by one of Northern’s smallest players showing that size does not matter when you can run. Dakota again made sure she was in the face of the opposition every time they ran with the ball, which resulted in a great picture from Chris Lishman – the Falcons photographer – of the fearful face of one of Northern’s players facing her. Jinking runs from Cassian allowed him to be open for a great pass from Alfie, who was being held by 4 Northern players and still moving forward, to score another brilliant try. While the match ended in a draw at 6-6, it was clearly one of the better games and Bishop found an evenly matched team in Northern RFC.

In the interval, the players met Marcus Tiffen, Ben Douglas, Keiran Wilkinson and Louis Brown, asked plenty of questions and were treated with a lot of valuable advice for advancing in their prospects as rugby players.

Our third and final game against Westoe, who Bishop are quite familiar with having played them already this season, finished in a 7-4 victory. While tiredness was setting in, this didn’t deter the players and with a 9v9 game on the go, it made sure that everyone had their moment on the pitch. Finley and Jenny, following their inspirational talk with the Falcon’s players, ran as if they were playing in the Premiership Cup Final and made sure that Westoe could not get any further than a couple of metres every time they made an advance. Harper, in her 7th game playing for Bishop Auckland, showed that she has picked up the game without an issue in her first season and her determination is great to see.

Players of the day:
Alfie and Jaxon.
Alfie and Jaxon were both voted by the opposition coaches for having the best attitude on the pitch and showing a positional as well as tactical awareness to show that some great rugby was played.