Morpeth travelled to Old Crossleyans with an even more youthful team in a re-arranged game knowing they had already secured their place in North East One for next season.

Six changes were made from the team that started against Gateshead ; Liam Carmichael ,Rory Morrison ,Chris Reynolds returned to the side with David Lynn making a welcome return from injury. Ben Hornby had his first start at fly half for the unavailable Matty Jinks & Dan Halliday made his league debut at full back replacing Skipper Wilkinson who took his place on the bench ,after picking up a niggle in the mid week game.

Morpeth started strongly and for once the bus journey had no affect ; arriving at the ground early after an easy journey down may well have helped. However Old Crocs actually took the lead with a penalty for a high tackle but Morpeth responded well with the young forwards making inroads into the Crossleyans half & with sustained pressure Captain Forsythe crossed the line leaving an easy conversion for Hornby ,with his trusty yellow cone , to give a 7-3 lead after 15 minutes. Morpeth then had most of the ball & were thankful for another try from Forsythe after good interplay between backs & forwards with 2nd row Stephenson showing the way with a superb reverse pass ,not inkeeping with 2nd rows of the last 2 decades , to winger Hills who then fed Forsythe. Hornby again converting to make it 14-3 & that remained the score for half time.

The second half was as competitive as the first in what was an entertaining game with the sun shining, making the previous months foul weather a distant memory. Morpeth defended admirably for parts of the game with a sin binning in each half meaning the young side had to "dig in". Old Crocs scored a try to narrow the gap to 8-14 but Morpeth responded & worked their way back up the field giving Hornby a kickable penalty which he duly took to extend the lead to 17-8.

Pringle & Tom Wilkinson came on with both sides picking up injuries on the hard ground. Crocs again had good pressure & narrowed the gap to 11-17 with a penalty. This lead to a very tense last 10 minutes for the away support but the team showed alot of maturity to hold out with Gordon Wilkinson making his 1st team debut in the last 5 minutes ; this being another landmark with brothers Wilkinson been the most recent brothers to play for the 1st team together.

Away win's are hard to come by in Yorkshire & hopefully this is another step for this young team that has got through a difficult period ,mainly due to the huge commitment from all.

Morpeth have another busy week with a home game to Percy Park in the County Cup on Wednesday & on their travels again on Saturday away to Pontefract in the last League game.