Published at 10:19, Friday, 06 June 2008

THEY came in their hundreds, from places with names like Zennor, Mousehole and Ventongimps.

There were more black and gold stripes than in a beehive, and there were lots of small, dark, people sporting droopy kilts and bizarre pisky hats with bells on.

There was even a uniformed marching band, with big bass drum booming and whistles shrilling.

This was Trelawny’s Army on the march, confident of sweeping little Northumberland aside and taking Twickenham by storm in the final of the Rugby Union County Shield.

However, the Cornish fans were left choking on their tiddy oggies, and weeping into their starry gazy pie,as they slunk back over the Tamar in disarray having been put to the sword by a Northumberland side bristling with Tynedale talent.

The Northumberland victory had “Made in Tynedale” stamped all over it.

The bulk of the Northumberland squad were Tynedale through and through, with 11 current players and another five ex-Corbridge favourites among the 23 man squad.

The squad was coached by the peerless Tom Borthwick, who had already guided Tynedale to promotion to National Division Two.

Assisting him was Jamie Murray, who would certainly have been in the playing squad too had a cruciate ligament injury not kept him out for virtually the whole season.

The Tynedale men didn’t do it on their own, of course, but their familiarity with each other was the key to victory.

There were fears that a 10 o’clock kick off time on a Sunday morning would be too early for the players to give of their best, let alone fans from the two extremes of the rugby world.

However, the crack of dawn kick off was the price to pay for staging the final at Twickenham, where it could be shoehorned in with the Bill Beaumont Cup final and the annual England v Barbarians end of season showpiece.

In fact it was the minnows of the piece who produced the best game, with the England- Barbarians game so dire many people were streaming out long before the final whistle.

Although both sets of supporters had to travel for around five and half wearying hours to get to Twickenham, the Northumberland contingent was heavily outnumbered by the pasty eaters.

While the North East has its pick of premiership football teams to follow, the South West is a football desert, so the Cornish turn their Celtic fervour to rugby.

So while the Northumberland contingent could only muster a handful of scarves, a natty bow tie and a rather hesitant version of The Blaydon Races, the Kernow Crowd had flags to flutter, banners to brandish and chants by the number.

There would doubtless have been more people in the echo chamber that was the Home of Rugby had the game started at more sensible time.

The last time Northumberland played at Twickenham in 1995, the Northumberland RFU ran a special train, which was crammed with rugby fans from across the North-East.

This time, there was the team bus, and one supporters’ coach, which was only two-thirds full, primarily of badged and blazered but supremely affable committee men and relatives of players.

It was a very civilised way to travel, for the coach had hardly left Newcastle before two ladies were passing what appeared to be a bin liner crammed with sweeties around the entire coach.

Moments later, a jumbo sized Tupperware container was opened, and out came the home-made cakes.

The cakes were followed by a proud parent plying the red wine bottle to all and sundry, so it was a very pleasant journey indeed.

The players had gone down the previous day to acclimatise, and had a training session at London Scottish

Canny Cumbrian Borthwick skilfully knitted vastly experienced Wallsend police sergeant and legendary lock Dave Guthrie and his Blaydon team-mate Jason Smithson into the pack, and North never looked back.

There were fears that the early kick off time might affect the players, most of whom had not played ante meridian rugby since their schooldays.

It was a rough, tough and sometimes brutal affair, which ended with scorer of the opening try Jack Smales nursing a dislocated shoulder, and several team-mates sporting more black eyes than the Kronk gym.

The Northumberland pack soon established total superiority in the tight over the Cornishmen, most of whom ply their trade with Launceston, Redruth and Mounts Bay in national division two.

Few of the Northumberland contingent played at that level this season, but the way the Tynedale contingent acquitted themselves augurs well for next season.

Good through the scrummaging was, the line-out was a nightmare, and it wasn’t until well into the second half that North won one.

Cornwall were never really allowed to get going, for when the tried to run the ball, they were scythed down by wave after wave of Northumberland tacklers.

The men from the North regularly turned the ball over, and used it well.

The Twickenham turf looked in surprisingly good nick considering it had staged the pulsating Premiership play off the day before, but it was decidedly slippery underfoot after overnight rain, with players from both sides losing their footing regularly.

Northumberland weathered an early storm before silencing the Cornish cheers when full back Jack Smales left the cover for dead on 10 minutes, and skated in for the opening try.

Tynedale team-mate Gavin Beasley lined up the conversion, but skewed the ball wide, as he did with a subsequent penalty.

The fly half was on target seven minutes later, when a thunderous charge by Tynedale flanker Tim Swinson was halted illegally, and Beasley’s penalty made it 8-0.

The Cornwall Band’s merry airs had become a funeral dirge before spirits were raised by a penalty from Marc Scrivener, as North struggled to reset the scrum after the loss of Guthrie with a blood injury.

The revival was only temporary, as hunting hounds Hamish Smales and Johnny Williams harried Redruth winger Lewis Vinnicombe into miscuing a clearance on his own line.

Tynedale prop Williams whisked the loose ball out to Beasley, who flopped over for the try on the half hour which he again failed to convert.

A second Scrivener penalty just before the interval restored Cornish spirits, but Tynedale still led 13-6 at the break.

Cumbria enjoyed their best spell of the game in the opening 10 minutes of the second period, but the defence held as firm as the Great Whin Sill.

Then Cornish hearts were broken as Northumberland attacked up the left hand side, and Tynedale’s Andrew Murray, on as a replacement for another ex-Tynedale man Graeme Smith, stretched over to score.

Suddenly, there was daylight between the sides.

With a number of walking wounded, Borthwick rang the changes, bringing on a total of seven replacements in the second period.

Cornwall produced a brief flurry, inspired by veteran lock Richard Carroll’s charging runs and ex-Bath scrum half Ricky Pellow’s introduction from the bench, and on the hour, full back Paul Thirlby went over on the right to bring a frenzy of drumming and whooping from the black and gold ranks.

Hopes of a repeat of their tremendous Twickenham fightback to bear Yorkshire in 1991 were soon stilled however, by the try of the game.

Northumberland were attacking down the left, when Beasley swivelled, and launched a beautifully judged cross kick to the right wing, where Morpeth flier Peter Cole gathered beautifully to touch down.

This time, Beasley celebrated his part in the try by adding the conversion, and the Cornish drums were silenced for the last time.

Things got a little nasty in the last 10 minutes or so, as the Cornish players let their disappointment get the better of them, but afterwards they freely admitted the better team had won.

And how refreshing it was to see the two sets of fans mingling happily afterwards, perhaps swapping recipes for pan haggerty for tips on how you make the fish stand up in a starry gazy pie.

And can you imagine a crowd leaving a football match being greeted with squads of youngsters carrying backpacks of lager, dispensed via a stirrup pump, which was so novel it was almost worth the £3-50 per pint being charged.

The Northumberland squad was:

Jack Smales (Tynedale); Peter Cole (Morpeth), Ben Duncan (Tynedale), Paul Mooney (Otley and ex Tynedale), Hamish Smales (Launceston and ex Tynedale); Gavin Beasley (Tynedale), David Kay (Northern); Johnny Williams (Tynedale), Mathew Hall (Blaydon), Rupert Harden (Tynedale), David Guthrie (Blaydon, captain), Graeme Smith (London Scottish and ex Tynedale), Tim Swinson (Tynedale), Grant Rastall (Tynedale), Jason Smithson (Blaydon).

Replacements: Paul Winter (Blaydon and ex-Tynedale) for Harden 50, Matthew Fieldhouse (Tynedale) for Hall 70, Peter Southern (Tynedale) for Williams 65, David Whitehead (Blaydon) for Guthrie 62, Grant Beasley (Tynedale) for Rastall 70, Andrew Murray (Tynedale) for Smith 45, Charles Rayner (Darlington Mowden Park) for J Smales 74.

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk