North travelled to Glossop on a very blustery Saturday afternoon to face side 3 places below them in the league. The visitors played with heart and controlled aggression right from the outset. Neither team could break the deadlock and both started making mistakes. The frustration shone through from both sets of forwards and foul play saw North down to 14 men after 5 minutes.

North responded to this by scoring a well-worked try down the left hand side. Andy Donley fed the ball to John Eady who floated a pass through 2 pairs of hands where Dave Vickers sidestepped through a gap in the line to score in the corner. Eady missed the difficult conversion to leave North 5 ahead of the home side.

It took Glossop another 15 minutes to exploit the 1 man advantage with a try from the big second row. The ball was passed back inside at the side of a ruck and he burst through the gap and dived under the posts to give the fly half an easy conversion.

The teams were equal in number after another period of foul play by the Glossop try scorer. The red card gave North the opportunity to take the game to the home side. Enormous amounts of pressure nearly paid off, but Glossop were saved by the half time whistle.

Both teams were unchanged in the second half but North had a strong wind to contend with. The green and white army started where they left off in the first half. Great play by the North backs allowed Steven Donoghue to score in the corner to put North ahead. The conversion was missed which left the score at 10-7.

The game became very scrappy with a lot of stoppages for poor discipline from both sets of forwards. The referee kept control of the situation by using his red card twice more in consecutive sets of play.

Now at 13 a side, the game opened up with North getting the better of their opponents. Luke Corrigan was on fire and he picked the ball up from the base of a ruck and charged into the opposition half. He was brought down by the last line of defence and North regained quick ball to exploit Glossop’s line only for hard tackling substitute Matthew Saxon to be pushed into touch at the last minute.

North finished off the game with excellent support play by Chris Hyland. Ian Thompson picked up at the base of a ruck and released the hard running centre who meandered his way through the defence to touchdown over the whitewash. Again Eady failed to battle the elements with the conversion, which left the final score at 15-7 to North.

In the last play of the game the visitors lost their solid back row player Lee Roberts with an eye injury due to foul play in a ruck. North had many good performers including hooker Luke Corrigan who showed strength throughout the game and substitute Matthew Saxon who tackled anything that moved, but the Hayneswood Engineering man of the match goes to Dave Vickers for his distribution in the centre.