Newcastle Falcons U16’s  35 Border Reivers U16’s  10

The Reivers travelled to Newcastle on Sunday to face the Falcons U16 Academy team and complete their playing programme for the season.  After a greatly improved performance last week expectation was high but playing a bigger and more physical Falcons side, the Reivers struggled to gain possession from the beginning, although the spirit could not be faulted. 

Newcastle opened the scoring with a converted try out wide from a quickly taken penalty catching the Reivers defence off guard.  The Reivers rallied and developed some good phases of play; although the physicality of the Falcons side made ball retention difficult, and several good opportunities were spurned.  Eventually they got themselves onto the score board through a Sam Chalmers penalty; although from the resulting restart the ball was turned over and the Flacons scrum half broke through the defence to score under the posts.

The second half started strongly for the Falcons where from an attacking scrum, the Falcons No.8 picked well and continued on one of his several bulldozing runs to cross the line.  Again the conversion was added.  The Reivers showed a brief glimpse of fight as backrow forward Blair Reavley intercepted to run half the length of the field to score, with Chalmers adding the extra two points.  The Reivers then began to display the errors prevalent in their previous matches, dropping off tackles and turning possession over in the contact area. to allow Newcastle to attack at will.  Three further Falcons tries were added in the closing period as Falcons stretched their lead to 35-10.