If it could have gone wrong it did, despite a spirited performance from the girls. A late addition to the calendar for the colts meant that our warm up was truncated and started while the post-match stuff was taking place on the pitch for the colts. The u16s debuting their new kit was a highlight of the day with photos under the posts for the group.

We started ok and looked sharp, but Northern had a good spell which knocked the wind out of our sails in the contact area and we found it hard to get ourselves back into the physical contest for the majority of the first half. Our attack looked dangerous but was snuffed out a few times by some very good scramble defence by Northern who were building in confidence. After that a few attacks were less fluid than they usually are resulting in knock ons and we never really found our groove. Not long after we lost Missie to a head knock, followed by Evie being stretchered off with a knee injury and then minutes later Cardio with a knee injury! At that point with not long left, and Northern having sustained some injuries too, we called the game early due to numbers available to play.

A difficult loss to take, and costly in terms of personnel, but against a Northern side that boasted 11 or more Northumberland DPP players we got a good yardstick of where we are. A few minor tweaks and we can overturn that result in the return fixture, much like we did against Whitley Bay Rockcliffe and Penrith last season.

We wish a speedy recovery to all the injured players from the fixture, and Northern great luck in their campaign. We'll see you up at Gosforth soon.