Confident performances and a try scoring feast!

Darlington Mowden Park under 7’s and under 8‘s were amalgamated at Sundays first away fixture to produced two sides of predominately under 8 players to face off Hartlepool Rovers and West Hartlepool at the Rovers ground.
The two sides played consecutive games on adjoining pitches in a morning that rained on and off. From the off all the Darlington Mowden Park players were clearly chomping at the bit, eager to build on the robust performances three week prior against Durham at home.
One team comprising of mostly last years under 7’s started play against West and opened the game by scoring within seconds, this set the tempo of the morning and a confident win over West seeing 11 tries to 8 follow. The second game against Rovers was a tougher affair as Park lost by 10 tries to 12, there were some dazzling displays of attacking play, but in this instance Park were let down by some sloppy defensive positioning and missed tags. However, electric passing and touch line runs came courtesy of Edward, with some solid receiving, support play and evasive running from Arthur and Ben as they set up many of the scores. Darting runs were made by Alex, Davey and Jack keeping the opposition wondering which way they would turn in the centre and left of field. All players displayed a gratifying confidence handling the ball and running with ball in hand.
Parks other side played West twice and at each time fought them to a draw. The newer members of the Park side who only joined at the beginning of this season gave a spirited and fast paced display of skills that would have them mistaken for much more seasoned players. The crowd were treated to a feast of fast running and ball handling skills that kept the more experienced West side at bay to two 5 – 5 draws. Congratulations to William, Kevin, Sofie, Iain, Harry, Freddie and Nathan who all scored tries during the games, and for many this would have a been their first scores in the Park jersey away from home!
Congratulations to all the players, even with a mixed bag of won, lost and drawn games, in the 4 close games played we walk away with 31 tries scored between the 13 players who attended with 30 tries against us! This match reporter will be taking that as an aggregate win for the Park!

As always, our thanks to the dedicated parents, the relentless “try scoring machines” that are our players and the coaching team!