1st XV welcome Durham City 1st XV, and the 2nds travel to Sheffield Tigers.
A warm welcome awaits Durham City players, officials and supporters as they make the journey south for this game in North One East. We have met Durham City on numerous occasions, the last meeting being 4th January 2020 at Kelleythorpe when the game finished 15 each. Durham went into a 15 – 5 lead with 60 minutes gone, and Driffield came back to snatch a draw in the final moments. This was the 1st meeting for a few seasons, after Durham gained promotion to D & N1. Before that, the last meeting at Kelleythorpe was in 2017, with Driffield winning 39-13.
Durham have had a hard start to this season’s league campaign : they lost 25-42 at home to Moortown last weekend. They travelled to Cleckheaton on the opening weekend and the game went ahead with a final score 35-33 to Cleckheaton – however, the RFU website shows the game as Postponed. I am led to believe it is something to do with Durham playing an un-registered player, but I am sure we will see. So, they currently have 1 point and sit 11th in the league.
In league news :
- B & B couldn’t raise a side to travel to Pocklington, so conceded the game handing Pocklington 5 league points
- Cleckheaton beat Consett 20-34
- Ilkley won at Morpeth 3 -31
- Old Brods beat Morley 22-7
- Heath won at Scarborough 18-25
All this means that Ilkley and Moortown have the maximum 10 points, Heath have 9, and Old Brods 8. We currently sit 6th with 6 points from our 2 draws.
We look to kick on and get that 1st win on the board following two games that we really should have won. Last weekend at Malton, I thought we looked the dominant team for 65 minutes, so how Malton got a draw out of it i will never understand, but that’s rugby.
As I have already mentioned we have such a strong squad in the club this season, and we are lucky to welcome back one or two more lads to the 1st XV squad this weekend : Simon Pettinger makes his 1st league start for a couple of seasons following his knee injury and being unavailable for the openers for personal reasons. James Watts and captain Rob Mewburn both return to the squad, and Watts start at 9, whilst Mewburn joins the bench hoping to get his 100th 1st team appearance. We have a couple of debuts too : Rob Rix starts on the wing and Dennis Tuffour comes onto the bench. For Rix, this will be his 1st senior league game, while Tuffour has played union for Bradford and league at a high standard for Hull KR and York City Knights. Missing from last weekend’s side are Blenkinsop, Falkingham, Robinson, Scurry and Short – all injured.
The 2nd XV travel to Sheffield Tigers for thier game, hoping to follow up last weekend’s superb victory over Sandal which finished 42 – 0 to Driffield.
Good Luck to all.
Driffield RUFC 1st XV v Durham City 1st XV, Sat 18/09/2021, KO 3PM
- Nellen
- Ramsden
- Pettinger
- Turner
- Dinsdale, J
- Sowersby
- Jenkinson
- Brankley
- Watts
- Brigham
- Stephenson
- Johnson
- Dinsdale, B
- Rix
- Murray
- Dervey
- Mewburn
- Tuffour.