Alnwick v Park Academy

Percy Park travelled to Alnwick with a vastly understrength side due to senior call ups and illness resulting in the loss of seven forwards. Anlwick proved to be a strong, skillful side and totalling dominated the first half, parcially added by some inept Park tackling that was disapointing given recent work in training. The half time score of 36 - 0 brought about stern words from the coaching staff with little more than pride left to play for. Improve they did though still losing the second half 12 - 5, a number of noticeable performances gave some respect to the overall effort. Captain Sean Williamson was imense and it was good to see Micheal Birkett get a full game under his belt after a injury raveged season. In fact despite conceeding a lot of weight and playing players out of position Park's scrummaging was excellent and forced Alnwick's front row up in the air without penalty reward on numerous occassions. Close up tackling was fine but open play defence caused many problems that will have to be addressed. Park scored a try with the final play of the game touched down by Birkett after some fine forward play. To little to late but saving the embarassment of being nilled.

Final score Alnwick 48 Park Academy 5

Man of the Match: Sean Williamson

MORPETH 21 – 3 PERCY PARK

With only four points separating sixth place and second bottom in North 1 East, this game was vital to both teams, but in the end it was the home side who took the spoils after a solid second half performance.

Park were without skipper Brett Sylph and  Andy Dunn, both injured against Ilkley the previous week, so Michael Langlands moved to number eight and Tom Pollock came in at hooker. The visitors kicked off with the slope advantage, and for much of the first half dominated possession and territory, but could only come away with a solitary penalty from the boot of Rutter for all their efforts.