Rugby Union round-up (From The Northern Echo)

Rugby Union round-up

10:52am Monday 15th March 2010 in

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BLAYDON have accepted Wharfedale’s offer to switch next weekend’s match to Sunday and will hope to have eye-catching centre James Fitzpatrick available, writes TIM WELLOCK.

The former Westoe battering ram, who is attracting the attention of Newcastle Falcons, has been drafted into the England Counties squad for Friday night’s match in France.

Wharfedale also have two in the squad, which prompted them to suggest the switch before Fitzpatrick was called up.

Blaydon skipper Matt Hall is again in the Counties squad, while Mark Wilson and Andrew Archibald will again be playing for England Students against the French on Friday night.

With two members of the Falcons’ management team watching, Fitzpatrick was almost unstoppable in Blaydon’s 41-8 home win against Sedgley Park on Saturday, when Wilson was also outstanding in the back row.

In what is likely to be his only season with Blaydon, as he is a thirdyear student, winger Adam Armstrong continued to impress with 19 points from two tries, three covnersions and a penalty.

The visitors competed for the first 15 minutes, but Blaydon had two purple patches which brought three tries each.

Adam Dehaty, Armstrong and flanker Scott Riddell scored the first three before the visitors hit back to score their eight points and start the second half brightly.

But they couldn’t stop Fitzpatrick and after he almost made the line prop Robbie Kalbraier was driven over. Further tries swiftly followed from Wilson and Armstrong.

Tynedale won 70-6 away to National One doormats Manchester, scoring 12 tries with even prop Jonny Williams getting in on the act with a second half brace.

Westoe hung on to -win their National Two North match at home to Leicester Lions 20-17 after scoring three tries in 12 minutes to overturn an early 7-0 deficit.

Chris Clark, David Haswell and Dan Rayson all touched down and although Charlie Rayner missed the conversions his excellent pass put Rayson over for a fourth try after half-time. But from 20-7 up, Westoe found themselves under pressure and had Rayson sent off in injury time for tripping.

A spirited, last-ditch effort by West Hartlepool to escape relegation produced only one point as they lost 25-22 at home to National Three North leaders Stockport.

With the chasing pack in North One East 12 points adrift of the top two, Billingham are guaranteed at least a promotion play-off place after their 25-15 home win against Percy Park.

Billingham were 10-0 up after eight minutes. First Anth Hyndman kept play moving for Craig Shepherd to chase down a Joe Evans kick to score, then Peter Evans touched down.

Penalties were exchanged to make it 13-3 but Percy Park scored a try after 35 minutes, only for Billingham to hit straight back when Andy Garbutt found himself in space and broke several tackles to score from his own half.

The game stagnated until Park scored a converted try to reduce the gap to three points with ten minutes left. After sending on Paul Woodhouse and Sean Scott, Billingham got back on top and in the dying minutes Mike Evans went over to seal the game.

Hartlepool Rovers’ slump continued with 43-10 defeat at Durham City, whose continued improvement took them into sixth place, two points behind their visitors.

As when they also topped 40 points at Gateshead last week, City got off to a flying start with tries from their first two attacks through Mark Cammiss and Peter Dent.

Dan Kyle converted and added a penalty before Phil Hall scored for Rovers just before half-time. They also scored the final try through Ian Coulson, but by that time the City backs had run them ragged.

With all the mid-table clubs much nearer the bottom than the top in terms of points, depleted Darlington are not yet safe after losing 27-16 at home to Morpeth.

Of those who replaced the four unavailable forwards, Michael Tucker did very well at prop, but Darlington never provided good enough ball for their backs to use.

Poor tackling allowed Morpeth to score their first two tries either side of winger Danny Anderson finishing a good move which started with a series of pick-and-drives from the home forwards.

Nick Baldwin kicked a penalty to reduce the gap to 10-8 at half-time but Darlington had failed to use the wind and after a further exchange of penalties they fell further behind.

After a chip ahead, Morpeth capitalised on a good bounce to score a converted try, but lock Bill Smith barrelled over with five minutes left to give Darlington hope. They paid for ill discipline, however, as they were twice penalised for backchat and Morpeth ran in a converted try.

Stockton won 63-3 at home to Consett, who are as good as relegated from D and N One, along with Hartlepool. The visitors competed for ten minutes and were level at 3- 3, but it was 37-3 by half-time.

Winger Shaun McLaren scored a hat-trick for Stockton, other tries coming from full back Mark Shires (2), Simon Crozier, Scott Powell, Mark Conway and Mark Skirving. Jeremy Good added six conversions and two penalties.

■ Former Newcastle Falcons fly half Rory Clegg, now with Harlequins, kicked two penalties as England beat Scotland 27-6 in the Under 20 RBS 6 Nations contest at Firhill.

Full back Tom Catterick, Clegg’s former Barnard Castle School colleague, was singled out for praise by coach Mark Mapletoft, who said: “Tom responded well to being left out against Ireland and came back with a really polished performance.”

Clegg said: “We’re all looking forward to going to France now and we’re looking at it as the toughest game of the season.”

■ Darlington Mowden Sharks winger Jenny Edwards showed great speed to score the fourth try as England A beat the Nomads 26-7 at Esher. Mowden centre Georgina Roberts was also in the team.

In the women’s Six Nations Championship, Mowden fly half Katy McLean kicked two conversions as she skippered England to a 51-0 win against Scotland in Edinburgh.