After four weeks of intensive training, reminding ourselves how to ruck, learning how to strike for the ball in the scrum and to kick tactically, the boys put their skills to the test at our first festival of the season.

The Red Knights found themselves in the in the smaller group of the Rockcliffe Friendly Festival, with 20 minute games against Northern, Alnwick and Carlisle. After an hour of rugby the boys were thoroughly tired, but scored 21 tries, conceded just 4 and won all of their games.

GAME 1 - NOVOS VS ALNWICK

The first game of the day was our most challenging, with many of the spectators highlighting that it was a match of pace versus power. And it was the pace of Novos that saw us take control of the games in the opening exchanges.

Alnwick took charge of the initial kick off (we do that now in U11s) and put a drop kick high in to the Whitley Bay sky. As the ball came down, covered in snow, James J blocked out the stampeding boys in blue, cooly caught the ball and passed to Charlie who zigged and zagged through the defenders to open the scoring.

Novos then turned to defence, and after several crunching tackles from Tom and Harry, Alnwick tried a "down town" kick to relieve the pressure. Ollie F chased down the Alnwick kicker and he sliced the ball straight to Charlie, who doubled his tally to put Novos 2-0 up.

Alnwick began to use their size and press back the Novos attack. A huge kick from James M got Novos into a great field position, and Tomas scored to make it three, just before half time.

The second half continued at the 100mph hour pace and James M once again kicked deep in to Alnwick territory. A strong tackle from Ollie F saw Alnwick spill the ball and Tom picked up the loose ball and raced to the line. He was tackled just short, but his momentum took him over the line to make it four.

A very pacy George made it five and Novos were cruising. However, Alnwick are a good team and wouldn't roll over. They hit back with three big tries, the first was a David and Goliath mismatch with Max R bravely standing his ground against the charging Alnwick danger man and just failing to stop the score. Alnwick then went over in each of the corners and pulled back to 5-3.

Novos had to turn to defence, and we saw a try saving tackle on the wing from Angus, a crunching two man tackle from James J and Tom, and solid rucking from Ben and Harvey.

As the game entered the final seconds, the boys defended bravely. At the final whistle there were Novos men laid out injured in the pitch, but they had stopped the Alnwick team from crossing the whitewash for a fourth time.

FULL TIME SCORE - NOVOS 5 / ALNWICK 3

GAME 2 - NOVOS VS NORTHERN

The game against Northern started nervously, with both teams making handling errors in the early exchanges. The break through cakes when Ollie F ripped the ball in a tackle and and Tomas scooped up the egg to race in for the first try.

It was another Ollie F / Tomas combination that gave us our second score of the game. Tomas chased Ollie's huge clearance kick to tackle the Northern recipient on his own try line and knock the ball loose to score.

Ollie F scored one of his own, before Northern began to control, the possession. Using their big guys to drive down the middle, we saw some fantastic team tackling from Daniel, Angus, Ben and James J to keep Northern at bay. Half time finished three nil to Novos.

The second half started well with a resurgence from Novos. A smart cross field kick from a scrum by Charlie resulted in Tom crossing the line in the corner of the pitch.

As Northern looked for a try of their own, they began to spread the ball wide looking for space. Instead they found Ollie Finlay waiting for a trade mark interception try. He plucked the ball from mid air and raced over the line unchallenged.

The final try came as Charlie ferreted the ball out of the ruck and spun a pin point pass to Tom who made no mistake in making it six tries to zero.

FINAL SCORE NOVOS 6 / NORTHERN 0

GAME 3 - NOVOS VS CARLISLE

The final game started slowly with both teams showing off their rucking skills and taking the ball from each other. Tom and Tomas both scored great solo tries to put Novos two tries ahead.

However, Carlisle hit back with their own individual try, running from the in goal area to pull back the difference to one try.

Ben M was exceptionally unlucky to have a try disallowed for slightly stepping in touch, following a superb pass from Daniel. However, Novos then stepped up a couple of gears and began scoring with some free flowing rugby. Harvey made a great steal in the tackle and fed the ball to Tom to let him stride over for his second of five tries.

Two tries from Ollie F, added to further scores from Charlie and Tomas to mean that the Red Knights got in to double figures.

FINAL SCORE - NOVOS 10 / CARLISLE 1

Rob

Match Report for the Black Knights at the Friendly Festival
Jocasta

After just a few weeks of training following the long summer break, the rugby season kicked off with the annual Friendly Festival hosted by Whitley Bay Rockcliff RFC. The Novo Knights entered two teams into the festival and it was the players’ first chance to demonstrate how well they were getting to grips with some new rules like contested scrums and kicking.

The Black Knights first match was against Percy Park. The Knights displayed brilliant passing skills and excellent offloading, with Isaac taking a good catch early on in the game. Tries were scored by Josh and Joe G, but the opposition were victorious with 4 tries. Despite Percy Park’s attempt to score a fifth try with a determined run by one of their players, our team managed to get them offside and the try was disallowed. The 3 scrums that occurred in the game were all won by Percy Park.

Next up were an extremely strong Morpeth side who kept all the play in their end resulting in a score of 7 tries to our 1 (Max H).

Match 3 was a tighter game against Carlisle which was good to watch. Despite a good run by Max H and some excellent offloading by Josh and James, our brave Knights failed to score. Fearsome tackles from Matthew and Joe G failed to prevent Carlisle from scoring a total of 5 tries.

The final match against Ponteland saw the Novo Knights play some of the best rugby of the festival. The Ponteland side were down on numbers so 3 of our players (Sam Y, Fenton and Thomas T) were kind enough to agree to play for the opposition and ensure that the teams were evenly matched. Isaac scored the first try and later in the game also took a good catch from a starting kick. Samuel scored two tries – the first from a starting kick and the second after a good, fast run. James was on fire in this match, demonstrating his excellent running and weaving abilities to score three tries. The final score was Novos 6 – Ponteland 1 with Josh also demonstrating fantastic running and offloading skills.

Overall, Novo Knights Team 1 demonstrated excellent teamwork and seem to be starting to master some of the new rules. Many of the players have already been mentioned but there was also fantastic support play from Dylan, Noah, Ethan and Billy. The whole team displayed perseverance, determination and stamina, particularly in the last game when the opposition were clearly flagging. Well done to them all – an excellent start to the season.