Acklam U17s v Redcar U17s 19th. September 2004
Redcar U17s visit to Acklam started badly when half the team travelled to Middlesbrough by mistake. They arrived at Acklam 10 minutes before kick off. Redcar were only able to field 15 players, and started the game with a re arranged back line once again, and Habba replacing the unavailable Tucker at No.8, for his first game back after a dislocated shoulder.
5 mins. in Acklam won possession from a line out, quickly switching play to the opposite wing to score a try in the corner. They doubled the lead 5 mins. later with another try in the same corner.
Soon after the referee inexplicably pulled play back to award Redcar a penalty on the Acklam 22, after Dave Brown had shook off three tackles to leave himself with a 15m dash to the posts.Liam Rogers duly despatched the kick to bring his team back in to the game.
Midway through the first half two incidents occurred to change the course of the match. Firstly Prop Chris Williams injured his shoulder in a scrum and had to leave the field, shortly afterwards Fly Half Iain McPherson was carried from the field with a bad knee injury.Acklam sportingly lent a replacement to Redcar, but the result was never in doubt once Redcar were a man down.
The speedy Acklam backs took advantage of the extra man, and despite some plucky play by Redcar seemed to score tries when ever they wanted to, and ended the game victors by 64 points to 3.
Dave Brown was Man of the Match for Redcar, using his strength to good advantage despite carrying a Hamstring strain, closely followed by captain Andy Willis who covered every blade of grass to lift his troops in the second half.
It is a measure of the spirit and enjoyment this team gets from the game, that when the referee offered to end the game early to save them any more punishment, they insisted on seeing the game out, finishing with no more than ten fit men on the pitch.