Castle played their best rugby of the season against a strong Yarm side who have recently brought in some strong new players in an effort to save themselves from the threat of relegation. They arrived in Barnard Castle having thumped N Shields 48-12 three weeks ago and followed this up by turning over 3rd placed Seaton Carew in their own backyard 3-20.

They certainly looked the part; arriving earlier than the home players and warming up before the Barnie players had even arrived down on their own pitches.

After something of a deluge about an hour before kick-off the pitch was very greasy; not usually conducive to Castle’s preferred open style of play.  There were also one or two disruptive changes to the Castle personnel that saw Mark McEvoy come in at short notice for Paul Davis in the centre and Adam Firmin who moved in from wing to fly-half for Kirk Thompson. Now ‘Makka’ has not played competitively for a number of months due to a serious hand injury but you would not have known from the way he started the game. From the Yarm kick-off the Castle forwards collected the ball and had a number of forward drives up the pitch to get into the opposition half. A slick ball to Makka at inside centre saw him immediately punch a hole in the Yarm defence. When held the ball was efficiently recycled by the forwards through three further phases before sending it down the back line again. This time Richard Hughes at outside centre made the hard yards before slipping the ball out to Craig Dominick out wide who beat his opposite number on the outside and swallow-dived over in the corner.

Stung by the score Yarm showed they too could pick and drive and were soon up in the squidgy stuff in the top left hand corner of the pitch. Although the Castle defence was immense, Yarm eventually drove through from short range for a converted try that allowed them to think they were back in the game at 5-7. However within minutes after great drives from both flankers Andrew Eggs Clement and James Harrison (who had his best game of the season), fed the ball on the opposition twenty-two metre line fly-half Firmin dummied to pass down the line, stepped inside his man and realising there was a gap proceeded to canter through a flat-footed defence. With the conversion going over too, Castle re-established superiority that they never let slip. Yarm fought hard, but time and time again it was the Castle forwards who took the ball on and made good yards before giving the backs a chance to try and find gaps in the Yarm ranks. The eager crowd had to wait though until five minutes before half time for the next try to arrive. For the seventh time in four games it went to winger Paul Fenwick in his own trademark style. As so many times this season he gathered the ball in a tight situation, looked to have a run into a marauding horde of defenders and somehow waltzed his way through the lot of them to score under the posts to the stunned gaze of the visitors.

At 19-7 up at the break but now playing up the slope, there was a concern that the Barnie game would go off the boil and that the tide would turn. This fear was worsened when a number of stupidly conceded penalties allowed Yarm within scoring range and their centre managed to break through after a spell of sustained pressure on the Castle line. Some nerves on the touch-line were jangling at 19-12 but Barnie soon upped their game again and with Eggs and prop Sean Banner at the heart of the all that was good, most of the remainder of the game was played in the Yarm half. Yarm had to defend tigerishly and certainly kept the score to manageable proportions but eventually the scores came. After the Yarm line had been besieged for a continuous ten minute period and time after time, Barnie forwards were falling agonisingly short or spilt the ball in the tackle,  a drive on by scrum-half Liam Smart saw him lay the ball back to number eight Adam Haynes who had sufficient beef to pick and drive the extra five metres (another one scoring his first ever first team try this season!). Although the conversion hit the post, at 24-12 the safety margin had been gained and Yarm in an effort to play Barbarian–style rugby to close the gap made a complete mess of a quick lineout and Firmin was the lucky recipient capitalising on the spilt ball and then outsprinting the cover defence for a further score with ten minutes left. Although Yarm raised a spirited final flourish, the Castle defence were irresolute and they left the pitch with a real spring in their step after a really excellent performance. Somewhat bizarrely this Saturday the sides meet again in the reverse fixture over at Yarm; a result of the vagaries of an earlier postponed game due to the winter weather. Castle will be looking forward to it.