U16s - Second but NEVER second best

It is a measure of how far this team have developed to suggest that a narrow defeat to Blaydon would be a disappointment (a quick check back through the archives would show some one-sided affairs)....not for coaches, parents, brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, grandparents...but for the people that count, THE BOYS. Everybody who travelled up the A1 will have returned full of pride at the effort and endeavour shown by every single one of them in a blue and white shirt. Two great tries from Josh Murray and Andrew West contained passages of magnificent teamwork and individual brilliance (a reverse pass from Bobsie that should be on You tube), but it would be disingenuous to single out any individual, they were and are a team. They battled for the full seventy minutes and no doubt will replay the game in their minds, if this had happened or that hadn't, ifs, buts, maybes...

The tears shed at full time.....Junior, you are the man!

Readers of these reports over the last few years will understand that tradition dictates its time to reflect once again with Rudyard....the great things about competitive sport, and in today's case Triumph and Defeat (ed) summed up in perfect prose!

If
By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son

Well done to every single one of the boys from Blaydon and thanks for a great game, junior sport at its finest.....I am now off to cry.