Northallerton Stallions hosted their first RL 9 a side competition on Sunday 5th April at their home at Brompton Lodge, Brompton and hailed the tournament a big success.

Playing for a shield, kindly donated and sponsored by Dales Engraving of Bedale, teams from Jarrow, Gateshead Storm, Peterlee and Whitley Bay joined the Stallions and a representative Northallerton RU team in the glorious Spring sun.

The spoils were taken by a strong Jarrow team who beat Gateshead Storm in the final by 42 points to 10.

The Stallions had finished runners-up in their qualifying league to Jarrow and were narrowly beaten in their semi-final by Gateshead Storm 20 points to 14.

Tournament organiser Richard Horsley said ' The whole day was excellent - some good quality rugby played by all involved and everyone has enjoyed it. I would like to thank Dales Engraving for supporting the event. We hope this will become an annual festival prior to the summer season starting.'

The Stallions amassed 60 points in reaching the semi finals with tries from Steve Horsley (5) Craig Sykes (3) Andy Tuley (2) Nick Croker and Lee Worsnop, Worsnop adding 6 conversions and Head Coach Steve Worsnop was pleased with the performance of his troops after a disappointing friendly against Gateshead the previous week. “We were very unhappy with our game in the friendly. We didn’t execute any of the things we have been working on in training and the boys let themselves down. It took us a game to get into the competition on Sunday but after that we played some good stuff. We were unfortunate not to make the final but a couple of simple errors gifted Gateshead two late tries and that put us out. Still a vast improvement on our performance against them a week earlier”.

Northallerton will get another chance at the short form game in July when they compete for the second year in the York International “9’s”. However attention now turns to finalising preparations for the Co-operative Rugby League Conference season which starts with the visit of Winlaton Warriors on 2nd May.