This weekend we welcome Alnwick RUFC to Kelleythorpe for our North One East fixture.
This will be a real test : Alnwick are 3rd in the league with 2 games in hand on us (and 3 on Bridlington). This doesn’t mean they are guaranteed the points : their games in hand are YMCA (A), Percy Park (A) Penrith (H).
Alnwick have been in good form this season. They handed us our biggest defeat of the season so far when we made the trip north, returning home after a 28 – 8 loss. Alnwick have so far only lost the 2 games : away at Penrith on the second week of the season they lost 24 – 5 and, surprisingly, they lost at Northern in November 18 – 15. Back on the first week of the season Alnwick drew with Morpeth 16-16.
They hosted Bridlington last week, and like us Brid returned with zero points after losing 39-19. Alnwick’s last 3 results are :
- Beat Brid 39-19 (h)
- Beat Bradford & Bingley 36-19 (a)
- Beat Malton & Norton 49-7 (h).
We have played Alnwick for many seasons now. Both teams got promoted from their regional leagues at the end of the 12/13 season as league champions and have remained in North One East since. In the seasons in-between we have met on 8 occasions. Unfortunately, Alnwick won 6 of those matches and have a strong record when coming down to Driffield. Last season, Driffield won at Alnwick, 29-32 and Alnwick won at Driffield 19-27.
The result of this match won’t determine promotion. However, it will go a long way to showing what sort of challenge we can give. Both teams have some very tough games ahead and there is a long way to go yet.
Last week’s result at Cleckheaton was another great result. I thought the lads played very well in a very physical game, and rightly came home with the win. Match report is here if you want to recap.
Our 2nds are now on a roll having won their last two games (correction from last week’s review, 2nd team beat Old Crocs and did not lose). Last week they beat Cleckheaton 2nds 71 – 7. A superb result. This week they travel to Ilkley – a great fixture to test how strong your second team is.
Our 3rds have no fixture this week. They lost to BP 38 – 26 last weekend.
The 4ths host Pocklington. They beat Barton last weekend.
Driffield 1st XV V Alnwick RUFC, 19/01/2018 KO 2.15
1 – Blenkinsop, 2 – Brumfield, 3 – Waterhouse
4 – Douglas, 5 – Cooper
6 – Dodds, 7 – Cullen, 8 – Nellen
9 – Sowersby, 10 – Furbank
12 – Dench, 13 – Stephenson
11 – Dinsdale, 14 – Watts, 15 – Piercy
16 – Ramsden, 17 – Zavatti, 18 – Borman.
PLEASE NOTE, We will be holding a minutes silence in memory of David Dervey before all games this Saturday.
Many Thanks and Good Luck to everyone.