By DAVID COULTER

Published at 09:09, Monday, 15 October 2012

Prudhoe & Stocksfield 0Bishop Auckland 24

THEY went down fighting when they hosted third placed Bishop Auckland, but Prudhoe & Stocksfield remain in the hunt for their first win since being promoted to Durham and Northumberland II.

Bishop arrived with a reputation for big powerful forwards and good backs who are able to finish, and they looked like they were going to run away with the game when they scored early on.

But Prudhoe deserve full credit for giving all they could to restrict their visitors who made it five wins from six league games.

Things looked bleak for the home side after just three minutes when Bishop went 7-0 up. From a scrum five metres out, there was some confusion at the back of the scrum and hesitation by P&S was punished with the first try of the encounter.

The home side worked hard and the game went from end to end, right up to the second quarter when the visitor’s attack was sustained sufficiently for them to score a second try.

The game was not without incident as Prudhoe flanker Matt Bewick will testify. Playing his first rugby game after a cricket season with Stocksfield, he was reminded that he had reverted to contact sport when he was laid flat on his back by an incident unseen by the referee.

However, the referee had spotted several other transgressions by the visitors and, in the 30th minute, he signalled his frustration at the visitors play by binning the outside centre.

The first half concluded with both sides trying to move forward and with the visitors turning round 14 points ahead.

Restored to full strength, Auckland found themselves pegged back as the second half began with P&S in the ascendancy.

Winger Mark Stobo went close, Joe Jenkins made massive yards as he broke through the middle and captain Steve Rogers made even more yards before looking to offload, but Scott Unwin was unable to shake off the recovering Bishop defence.

Unwin, BJ Neill and Phil Scandle proved to be a very solid front row against Bishop and the latter also managed several impacting ball carrying yards.

Jack Liddle also caught the eye both in the lineout and with his tackling around the field.

The game was lost to P&S with 15 minutes to go when wide out on the left Bishop Auckland touched down for their third try.

They then put the icing on their cake by scoring a very good fourth try five minutes later when the blind side wing forward gathered and charged up field, evading some tired tackling before offloading to his teammate for the final try.

On a brighter note for P&S, their Pandas team picked up a victory on their travels to Whitley Bay Rockcliff.

Made up of P&S fringe players and Border Park players, they came home with the win with the outstanding moment of the game being the father passing to the son to score what turned out to be a memorable try.

Jonathon Dodds was heard screaming “Dad, Dad, Dad” and Harpic, who is not the best known passer of the ball, produced on this occasion make the perfect scoring pass.

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk