With the fixture being rearranged at short notice, a lack of pitches meant an early kick off in a temperature barely above freezing. With a reputation for not liking an early start, and with one half of the lads shivering like Tow Law rabbits and the other half looking like they had played their last game of fortnite in the early hours, the Mowden coaches were worried. A sleep deprived Coach Brown was not in a sympathetic mood and clearly laid out his expectations to the squad – to play with intensity from the off!

This seemed to have the desired effect as straight from the kick off, the ball bounced into the arms of Nicol who did what he does best, running hard and breaking through 4 tackles to go straight through and over in the corner.

Mowden then had a period of sustained 10 minutes of pressure in the Billingham 22, with Ward, Delaidriti, Stokell, and Pascoe all going close, but just couldn’t break through the final defender, often choosing to go alone with overlaps left begging.

However, a Billingham scrum on their 5 m line resulted in the rampant Myers barrelling over the Scrum half and jackaling the ball to go over the line.

From the resulting kick off, Mowden lost the ball and Billingham gained some possession for the first time but some fantastic tackling and rucking by the back row of Myers, Law and Ellis resulted in turnover ball. Rigby quickly fished the ball out of an ensuing ruck to fly half Delaidriti who jinked his way past 2 defenders before laying on a fantastic pass to Drought who left 5 defenders in his wake to score under the posts. Brown slotted the conversion.

Billingham regrouped and came again but found the Mowden pack were in no mood for giving away any free ball with, MacDonald, Wind and Stokell rucking strongly throughout. A charge from the Billingham pack then saw Law make a crushing tackle which the Billingham lock spilled forward. Drought picked up the lose ball and ran straight through the guts of the Billingham defence to go under the posts again. Brown cooly put the conversion over before half time.

After an untidy passage of play at the start of the second half, Law picked up the ball from a Mowden scrum and smashed through a series of tackles. A quick snipe from the base of the ruck by Patterson gained further metres and the ball was moved quickly to Nicol by the impressive Delaidriti who went over in the corner.

Billingham then tried to move the ball out wide on a couple of occasions but wingers Watkinson and Shepherd both snuffed out any attempts to get past, despatching attackers into touch with strong tackles.

Further tries followed for Delaidriti and Drought which were both converted by Brown and the referee concluded the game early after a strong run by Myers was finished off by the ever eager Law who picked up the ball and drove over, to give Brown another simple conversion.

This was a great performance from the whole team with outstanding defence throughout, and some great physical intensity and creativity which cut holes in the Billingham defence all game. Law and Myers were excellent in the back row and Drought continued his battle with Nicol for top try scorer but it was Delaidriti who was named man of the match. The Colburn based Hot Stepper was excellent today, dummying and stepping through the Billingham defence with ease and laying on some excellent passes for his team in an excellent display.

Report by Tristan Drought