Horden lose out to City slickers
Horden & Peterlee suffered a heavy 47-20 derby defeat at the hands of Durham City in Durham Northumberland One.
City, relegated from North One East at the end of last season, showed just why they are expected to be one of the favourites to go up.
A well-organised side, their off-loading game was highly effective as they proved at Eden Lane.
City scored within the first five minutes. A break through the midfield and good support play saw them go under the posts to make it 7-0.
A Turner penalty after some good work by Andrew King got H&P on the scoreboard.
However, City extended their lead to 14-3 straight from the kick-off with quick recycling and good continuity.
Midway through the half and after a series of penalties, the Colliery side lost Ben Crake to the sin-bin.
During this period, the visitors scored a further two tries, moving the point of attack quickly from side to side to score out wide.
Horden replied with their first try of the season.
A Thubron drop-out was allowed to bounce allowing Turnbull to nip in to steal the ball and race through to score under the posts. Turner converted to cut the away lead to 25-10.
Just before half-time, Horden worked a position inside their 22, only to miss the line-out and lost the opportunity.
Despite being under the cosh for most of the first half, Horden were only two converted tries behind.
H&P needed a try, but the errors continued to hurt the hosts. When they kicked the ball out on the full, from the resulting line-out just outside the 22, Durham’s forwards broke through the midfield and good off-loading saw them score again.
Horden showed character to keep on fighting and were rewarded when James crashed over from short range after a number of phases from both forwards and backs.
That made it 32-15 and while they continued to battle hard, with the line-out not functioning well Horden simply couldn’t retain the ball long enough to create an opening.
With City keeping the scoreboard ticking over, the final result ended up 4720 with Shaun McCallum picking up a consolation try on league debut to cap a solid performance.