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With our Welsh stars away at Twickenham and a spate of manky knees and man flu, we were back to scratching around for anyone with a pulse and forcing a black shirt over their heads. Justen "Lazarus" Elliott was plucked from his sick bed and wheezed around the park for 80 minutes but still made some explosive runs* to keep West End in contention throughout the game. Many thanks to Blaydon for lending us a player who seemed to enjoy taking on his erstwhile team mates.
Despite these problems things were going very well until halfway through the first half when scrum half K'ran Brooks got a whack on the head that left him seeing stars and had to sit out the rest of the game. Short of a prop, the scrums were already uncontested so Mike Beaumont decided to risk his beautiful teeth playing No 2 while regular hooker Paul Knott did his best to give scrum halves a bad name.
Now down to 14 players, we did well to hold Blaydon's old contemptibles to a scoreless draw until the 39th minute. There was some spirited play from West End, with all players raising their game and looking out for each other. Nevertheless, Blaydon managed a second try which was converted by Phil Rayson. Penalties from Rayson and West End's Ali Thornton brought the score to 3-12 before we all limped off to the fire station to watch the Welsh get beat.
Many thanks to all the lads that turned out and earned what was, under the circumstances, a creditable result against a very experienced Blaydon side.
*damp squib