Redcar travelled to top of the league’s Whitley Bay Rockcliffe expecting a stiff test of their durable defence and for most of the game Redcar led on the scoreboard and made Rockcliffe look ordinary.

Rockcliffe kicked off and struggled to make any inroads into Redcar’s territory, Redcar in fact played a lot of the time in the Rockcliffe 22, it was only through mistakes and penalties from Redcar, that gave Rockcliffe the opportunities to clear their lines with kicks. Redcar missed several penalty kicks and their line out struggled to gain any possession. Rockcliffe also missed an easy penalty kick and so the game went on until in the 27th minute. Redcar drove to about 20 metres in front of the Rockcliffe posts and when the ball was killed by a Rockcliffe player, Redcar’s player coach Neil Young was penalised for foul play and left the field for an early bath. This could have ended the game as a contest for Redcar but it only seemed to galvanise them and from a scrum Rockcliffe attacked the blindside and popped the ball up, winger Danny McIlvenny intercepted it and raced away 30 metres, evading the last tackler to score in the corner, the difficult kick was missed, 0 – 5.

Half Time Whitley Bay Rockcliffe 0 Redcar 5

Redcar kicked off the second half and continued much in the same vein, winning no clean lineout ball and were under constant pressure in the scrum due to being a man down. Redcar made the most of their limited possession and attacked the Rockcliffe 22 and were rewarded with a very kickable penalty, but unfortunately it was a terrible miss kick and stopped Redcar from adding to their score. Eventually as the clock moved towards the final quarter, Rockcliffe scored a try when their backs spotted a miss match, a Redcar prop in the line, so they found the gap to score, conversion missed, 5 – 5.

Rockcliffe were finally penalised for deliberately killing the ball, their No.1 who had been doing it all game, was given a yellow card. Another Redcar penalty went badly astray. Rockcliffe continued to push forward and this led to another try in the corner it was converted with a very good kick, 12 – 5.

Redcar still had chances but seemed to lack the confidence to take Rockcliffe on. No.8 Andy Little, who had a great game and Danny McIlvenny looked to be the only one’s lightly to add to the Redcar score, but Danny Mc was substituted towards the end of the game, for a more defensive player, this seemed like Redcar wanted to stop Rockcliffe scoring anymore and so it proved, with Redcar stopping Rockcliffe from getting a winning bonus point (for the first time this season) and Redcar got a deserved losing bonus point.

Final Score Whitley Bay Rockcliffe 12 Redcar 5.