A beautiful spring morning greeted the Carlisle under 12’s on Sunday the 2nd of April and all the lads were excited as they had been allocated the first team pitch to play their match verses Novocastrians from Newcastle. Unfortunately though the first team pitch was still waterlogged and the match had to be switched to the dreaded “Central Fields”.

For those of you who are unaware of Central Fields and the “hazards” that can be found there, an explanation: Central Fields is the municipal field next to the river, opposite the Youth Zone. Its fine, drains well, but is unfortunately used by many in our City as a dog “walking” area and therefore requires a special kind of pitch inspection from the coaches prior to letting anyone play rugby there.
However, the Carlisle U12’s coaches were not perturbed by this as many Sundays at Central Fields had prepared them well and the hazards were all quickly removed…bar one…which no-one had the stomach to lift (what the owners had been feeding the poor beast heaven only knows. It must have been existing on a diet of pure bran), so a red cone was placed on top of it to warn off any players from getting too close to that area of the pitch during the match.

Eventually, the game got underway with Carlisle fielding an experienced team to start the match, however it was Novos who set the early pace with 2 quick tries in the first 5 minutes. The Carlisle lads looked half asleep and needed some words of “encouragement” from coach Marc Quinn on the sidelines to get them going. Captain, Danny Gorman, led by example from stand off and started running much more aggressively and directly at the Novos backs. The rest of the team took their lead from Danny and all raised their levels of effort and aggression. The result was 9 unanswered tries, making the half time score Carlisle 45 - Novos 10.

For the second half, Carlisle sportingly changed 7 players, just leaving a core of the starting team on the pitch, to even the game up. It was during this second half that Carlisle player Josh Hope made the very brave decision of running towards the “red cone” in the full knowledge that it was unlikely that any Novos defenders would want to tackle him. Unsurprisingly this high risk strategy paid off and the Novos defence parted around the red cone to allow a clear run in to the try line. Perhaps this is the kind of alternative thinking that is needed in modern rugby? I doubt it.

Even after making so many changes the Carlisle team largely maintained their continuity in the 2nd half and won 35 to 15 with some great team tries.

So overall, a great morning of rugby in the sunshine, with some good play from both teams and loads of tries for the lads to enjoy.
Finally, if anyone knows someone who has a dog and walks it around Central Fields without “picking it up” please let them know that they have left something behind and that we are more than happy to deliver it to their door personally for them.

Reporter John Hope