After Gateshead got in touch to ask to move the friendly forward a week we were pretty nervous about how quickly we could pull a team together, but we did it and on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the club, with the u16 girls fresh from full time on the grass next to us, the ladies ran onto the AGP with the u16s providing a guard of honour, and plenty of cheers from the home crowd.

Gateshead, who were a great bunch of players and coaches with great attitudes and playing every second in the spirit of the game, brought a pretty large squad with a mix of experience and new talent, not dissimilar to us.

The game got underway with the outstanding Joe Riddle in the middle and we were away. With Harriette moving from wing in her first game to hooker for this one, Charlotte joining her in the front row for their first taste of contested scrummaging; Angel getting to grips with playing in the back row, Megan on the wing and Emily waiting on the sidelines to come on - all three making their debuts.

Hannah opened the scoring with a trademark run through the middle off a shoulder and got herself off the mark, with Freya scoring one from close range not long after and Millie completing the set for the first half, also converting all 3. A half full of speed and attack from both sides, proper flowing rugby.

The second half slowed quite a bit, with lots of scrums and plenty of fatigue. With that came some more robust defence from Billingham, and more determined attack from Gateshead. Gateshead got over the line either side of 2 more Millie scores.

Player of the match honours were shared - we picked Harriette for a robust performance with ball in hand and composed scrummaging, and Gateshead picked Millie.