By BRIAN TILLEY

Last updated at 12:46, Friday, 05 February 2010

Tynedale 38, Launceston 22. ANOTHER top scalp is dangling from Tynedale’s lodge pole this week following a five star, five try performance from the Blue and Whites.

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The 430-mile coach trip back to Launceston must have been a sombre one for the much vaunted Cornish All Blacks, who were surrounded and scalped by Tom Borthwick’s braves.

Boasting one of the best away records in the league, with six wins from nine away matches, the visitors were churned into Cornish ice cream by an all-action Tynedale performance.

Their monster pack could not cope with Tynedale’s relentless scrummaging power, and the rest of the Tynedale team rose to the occasion in superb style.

Even the loss of joint leading try scorer Charlie Ingall on the morning of the match with a throat infection failed to put a dampener on proceedings.

They brought in the equally fleet-footed Sep Visser, who helped himself to two fine tries.

Following the win at Cambridge the previous week, Tynedale have now beaten three of the five sides above them in National League Division One this season, and the league leaders will be looking over the shoulders with some concern.

Of the 12 remaining league matches, seven are at Corbridge, where away victories are as scarce as hairs on John Shotton’s shiny pate.

There wasn’t a weak link anywhere; the teak tough forwards and the inventive speedy backs being sewn seamlessly together by mercurial scrum half Dominic Shaw and fly half Gavin Beasley.

And pulling the strings like a master puppeteer was the excellent Phil Belgian, who kept Tynedale in the game with a string of first half penalties, and even managed a rare try to be Tynedale’s top scorer on the day.

Despite what you may have heard over the public address system, Tynedale’s man of the match was the magnificent Jamie Murray, who appeared to be everywhere, making breaks, tackling, plucking line-out catches, and also scoring a fine try.

Launceston travelled north on Friday, and awoke with some surprise to find their overnight accommodation at Seaton Burn was under several inches of snow.

Happily, the snow was restricted to the east of the district, and Corbridge only had frost to contend with.

The pitch was bone hard in the morning, but a late pitch inspection ruled it perfectly playable.

Launceston started very brightly, absorbing a couple of early Tynedale thrusts, and then counter-attacking with deadly intent.

Tynedale tackled manfully, but the black army kept trundling forward, and after seven minutes, giant lock Nathan Hannay marked his Launceston debut by crossing the line close to the posts.

Tony Yapp converted, and a frisson of fear ran through the Tynedale not-so-faithful.

They had little cause for concern, for the All Blacks conceded penalties in the eighth and 11th minutes, both of which were neatly slotted over by Captain Fantastic Belgian to bring Tynedale within a point.

And two minutes later, a booming kick to the corner by Gavin Beasley saw the All Blacks make a complete mess of the line-out.

A scrum five resulted, and fine play by Andrew Murray and Belgian saw the ball whipped out to Visser, who muscled his way over for Tynedale’s opening try.

Belgian converted to give Tynedale a 13-7 lead, but the gam was soon see-sawing again.

There seemed little danger when Launceston’s squat winger Jason Luff collected the ball on his own 22.

The helmeted flier ran the ball at Tynedale with interest, barreling his way through some pretty feeble Tynedale tackling to breach the home 22, when Launceston pressed home their advantage to score through centre Ryan Westren.

Yapp missed the kick, but the gap was back down to a single point – and there were only 16 minutes gone!

Belgian boomed over another penalty on 20 minutes to give Tynedale some breathing space, but this was immediately cancelled out by another successful kick from Yapp.

The home crowd were growing increasingly restive at All Blacks scrum half’s Lewis Webb’s blatant feeding of the ball into his own second row at every set scrum, but Yorkshire referee Chris Sharp was indifferent to their howls of protest.

The first half ended with a glorious sweeping move from Tynedale, the ball going left, and then coming back right, for the tireless Murray to come galloping through for a quite superb try.

Belgian’s conversion attempt just faded away, but Tynedale had their noses in front by 21-15 at the interval.

Mr Sharp further incurred the crowd’s wrath at the start of the second half, when another sweeping Tynedale move was halted by a flagrantly deliberate knock-on.

The guilty party was all set to take the yellow card on the chin, but Mr Sharp contented himself with the award of a penalty only.

Tynedale opted for the penalty scrum – but contrived to lose the ball against the head.

Tynedale were soon back, attacking down the other side, and this time, there was no stopping Shaw as he darted round the blind side to touch down wide out.

Belgian converted magnificently from the touchline into a setting sun, and, for the first time, there was daylight between the sides.

The All Blacks were creaking at the seams, and Tynedale harassed them into further mistakes, one of which was pounced on in the 17th minute of the half.

Tynedale turned the ball over, and there was Belgian cutting through for the bonus point clinching fourth Tynedale try.

He failed to convert his own score, but Tynedale were sitting pretty at 33-15.

They felt confident enough to replacement two of the more substantial forwards in lock Ben Marshall and prop Douglas Jupp, both of whom had given their opponents more trouble than they could handle.

However, the reshuffled pack took time to settle, and when Launceston kicked a penalty to the corner on 21 minutes, their big pack were able to bullock their way over for Hannay to claim his second try. Yapp’s conversion went in off the far post.

The gods seemed to frown on Tynedale when a second deliberate knock-on by Launceston went unpunished.

Former Launceston favourite Hamish Smales gleefully went over on 29 minutes to put one over on his old club, but the score was ruled out for a forward pass.

James Hoyle returned to the fray late on after breaking thumbs in his only two appearances, but there was time enough to show his class with some nimble footwork.

With seven minutes of normal time left, another pounding break by Jamie Murray set up Visser for his second try and Tynedale’s day was complete.

To their credit, the All Blacks continued to play open, attacking rugby to salvage a losing bonus point with a fourth try, but the mighty Tynedale defence again kept them at bay.

National League Division One

First published at 09:43, Friday, 05 February 2010
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk