We arrived at Thirsk in pretty foggy conditions. A couple of the players looked quite foggy too - I think that the Christmas overindulgence may still be going on for some. For a change we actually had more players than we needed on the pitch at any one time - thanks in part to our new friends from the Army college.

Things didn’t get off to the best of starts, with Thirsk scoring after about one minute. We managed to contain their sustained pressure for about 15 minutes though, until we pushed back and Sam scored from a nice chip over the Thirsk defence. Another period of attacking from Thirsk and sometimes frantic defending from Harrogate finally resulted in Thirsk scoring on the stroke of half time to take us into the break down by 10-7.

The second half went significantly more Harrogate’s way, started off by a breakaway try from Charlie, and then shortly after that a try from Aaron to take the score to 19-10 to Gate. Thirsk pulled one back before having a player yellow carded for a brutal tackle. After that, tension eased significantly and we made the extra man tell with two more tries (Conor and Charlie again). The final score flattered us somewhat at 33-15, as there were sustained periods of poor tackling and scrappy play, but a win is a win, and I’m sure that now the Christmas cobwebs are blown away we will push on into the remainder of the season in splendid form.