As suspected, Jack Beckwith confronted his responsibilities full on and ran away, straight into the bosom of the first team. The fickle captain, now known as SCJ (deduce yourself what that means), believes that they like him, but we all know he will be thrown back to us, as soon as a proper rugby player comes along.

Withered down to thirteen players by Saturday morning, it was an awkward couple of hours whilst we negotiated the release of a player in the third team. Eventually Blandie relented and gave us Jay Goulding on the stipulation that we keep him. No way could we agree to those terms, but we would consider a time share, as long as the third team had him at weekends.

The last minute recruitment of the Jordanian Project gave us our fifteen, however it did mean that we would have both members of the Leary tag team on the pitch at the same time, at least until one of them got sent off.

---- The Game ----
With Sefton having the wind in the first half, I actually encouraged Jay Evans to kick for territory, as long as he made sure it went out. Perhaps I should have stipulated more precisely where I wanted him to kick it.

Sefton start strongly, with both Leary’s making their presence known with some hard-hitting tackles. A break came within minutes of the start when the ball is shifted out to a returning Jonathon Tebbs on the wing. Tebbs was able to brush aside a couple of attempted tackles and score in the corner.

Sefton’s forwards dominated the scrums, and pushed Newcastle back every time. It was from the scrum that Sefton was able to increase their lead, with Jordan Moffatt picking up at the back of the scrum, and eventually driving over for a try.

Sefton were soon attacking Newcastle’s twenty-two again, and looked to have an overlap out wide. Jay Evans decided to do an audacious pass missing several of his team-mates out. Unfortunately, this went straight to an awaiting Newcastle player, who was able to sprint away and score under the sticks for a converted try.

Not perturbed by this Sefton tried to resume their dominance, but now Newcastle were bolstered by the try, and were suddenly reinvigorated. Some sloppy play from Sefton, and some cheap penalties allowed Newcastle to score another converted try. Sefton found themselves behind with only themselves to blame.

---- Kicking Update ----
With his free reign to kick the ball, we were hoping that Jay Evans would heed my plea to just make sure it went out. Unfortunately, he took it too literally, and twice kicked it so hard it bounced over the try line, and over the dead ball line. This encouraged Jay Goulding to also have a go, and managed to surpass even Evans’ kicks by passing the goal line and running onto the next pitch.

A couple of chances by Sefton were wasted, including Grant Leary being held up over the try line, and Brian Gardner, yet again languishing on the wing, but failing to put the ball over the try line before he was pushed out of touch.

Gardner’s chance finally came when the play was switched to the other wing, and some sustained forwards pressure led to him breaking through for a try, converted by Evans.

Grant Leary had another chance to score, but his wet fish hands let him down again. Soon after that he went down with a squeal, and he was carried from the field, with his son, Dan looking shamed about his dad’s feeble out-cry. There was joint hushed embarrassment by the team, and we understood when young Dan rushed off after the game to avoid talking about his dads frailty. Grant was replaced by a late arriving Dave G.

Newcastle finish the half strongly, and manage to score a well worked converted try to take the lead at half time.

Now with the wind against them, Sefton would have to work even harder. However, Sefton seemed to step up a gear, and spent the majority of the time within Newcastle’s half. Despite some wayward passes, and some needless kicks, Sefton possessed most of the ball barring a few incursions into the Sefton half. Matty Cunningham and Dave G were a constant threat around the fringes, and Pistol Pete made several breaks, but Newcastle’s defence was solid, and it was proving hard to break down. The set pieces were the key, but losing Grant Leary left us with just Paul Murphy as our only jumper, who just managed to hold his own. The scrums though were dominated by Sefton, and this gave them a great platform to work from, with both Paul Latham and Ali McKie both having plenty of chances to run at Newcastle, however it was thirty minutes before Sefton managed to find a way through.

Several penalties got Sefton within striking distance, and this resulted in a scrum five metres out from the oppositions try line. The drive shoved Newcastle back onto their try line, and the ball was passed out to Paul Latham just as the scrum started to break apart. From there Latham was able to break through and go over to score by the posts. Evans converted.

With fifteen minutes still to play, there was still time for Newcastle to come back, so it was important that Sefton got another score. The opposition tried to kick behind Sefton but Ali Telfer was there to run it back, as he dodged past the first oncoming defender, he was faced with a prop blocking the way to open space, but rather than step round him, and use his pace to avoid him, he ran straight into his arms. I just think poor Ali hasn’t had enough cuddles in his life and has been starved of affection. The prop gleefully wrapped his arms around Ali and the ball in a big bear hug, and everyone was happy.

It wasn’t till the last five minutes that Sefton managed to open the gap. A ruck mid-field provided the opportunity for Jordan Moffatt to sneakily step through the centre of the ruck to the furious exclamations of Pistol Pete, who was just about to do it himself. Have these lads got no shame? (I thought we’d left all this sneakiness behind with Michael Carruthers). Jordan was able to run through unhindered and score under the posts, with Jay Evans kicking the conversion.

At the last play Pistol Pete finally gets his reward, finding a gap and breaking through thirty metres from the try line. To be honest I didn’t give him much chance of making it, being twice as far as he’s ever run. The full back comes across and still Pete refuses to go down, looking like a wildebeest being ambushes by a pride of lions as he carries them over the try line.

It’s fair to say everyone had a good game, even may I say it, Goulding, who allowed himself to be trampled underfoot by the opposition on numerous occasions, which saved us a job. The loss of Grant Leary made the job harder, with Grant’s enthusiasm for tackling putting the opposition on their backs every time, if only he could avoid running with the ball. The one person who was probably glad Grant went off was Johnathan Tebbs, (who’s leg was apparently broken by the clumsy oaf in pre-season training), however, it was as if Tebbs had never been away with him keen to run with the ball at every opportunity.

The Jordanian Project is ongoing, though he doesn’t play that often, he was very close to being man of the match, but I do expect more from him. The coveted award went to Pistol Pete who had a consistently solid game, a word that fits comfortably when describing Pete, that and annoying.

So not only did we have to endure Pete and Brian's accounts of their tries, we also had to listen to Goulding, and how he single handed, won us the game.

---- Who is Sean Muirhead? ----
More like where is Sean Muirhead? With a late cry-off Saturday morning, Sean was apparently in a bad way, claiming he was in bed and really, really sick. How sick was he? I didn’t even know he had a sister!

---- Other News ----
The first team captain has been dealt a bitter blow after injuring his ankle last week in a non-rugby incident. Liam Brown, now possibly re-named Davros because of his inability to climb stairs could be out for the rest of the season.

This Saturday the seconds will be away at Birkenhead Park, unfortunately some of our players will have to confront their fear of crossing the Mersey.