Chummer was in some considerable pain after taking a totally legitimate hit in the back and was taken from the field by ambulance. Fortunately nothing is broken and he was able to appear later in the night on crutches after a severe dose of pain killers.

He should have got some sent over for the crowd. This was a hangover from the Horden performance with one small consolation in the fact that we are starting to win line out ball. I'm reliably infoirmed by Messrs Rudd and Miller that we lost only two of our own ball this week against a much taller pack.

Sadly we couldn't do much with it. The visitors backs were led by 18 year Newcastle Falcon player Toby Flood. He is obviously coached by Jonny Wilkinson, and has a set goalkicking routine which takes some considerable time to effect. He wasn't too hot on the day, fortunately, but got the best out of his backs in a first half which saw us trail by 25 to 3.

Chummes injury at the start of the second half led to a 20 minute delay but when we did restrat we had our best spell of the game picking and driving to great effect. All that came to an end when Phil Gilbraith was unlucky to be sin-binned when he intervened in an altercation involving Henry Tones.

We had narrowed the margin to 16 points but Flood scored a try to seal the game and that was ddQwFlood scored a try to seal the game.

Phil Wallis came on for Darren Thomas with Davy Tighe going back to his usual scrum half role. The youngster didn't get much chance but he is a classy footballer and did enough to suggest he will get more chances in the near future. The same could be said of Anth Carr who is nhaving to learn quick in the front row. With Chummer out for some weeks this could be his chance.

The Stags once again put up a great first half show but wilted against a strong Morpeth second string in the second half. At half time it was only 12-7 but the vistors ran in another 30 or so points in the second half.

West Martin Todd, Dave Mullen, Andrew Hare, Allan Milne, Will Richardson, Davy Tighe, Darren Thomas [Phil Wallis 65], Mark Cholmondeley [Phil Gilbraith 45], Brett Cullinane, Carl Robinson [Carr 15], Paul Rudd, Stu Bennett, Carl Miller, Henry Tones Tim Sawyer [capt}.

Reps: Anth Carr, Phil Gilbraith, Philip Wallis.

Morpeth 15 David Wall 14 Alan Rogers 13 Marc Nordini 12 Brian Stewart 11 Darren Cunningham 10 Toby Flood 9 Paul Jackson 1 Richard Morrison 2 David Dickinson 3 Robert Leiper 4 John Stafford [Capt] 5 Paul Scott 6 John Walton 7 Ian Menzies 8 Duncan Hutton 16 Ben Dale 17 Stephen Rank 18 Chris Reynolds