A windy day for rugby saw Sedgie welcome Winlaton to the Wok still needing points to stave off lingering worries about relegation. A big ask considering Winlaton are riding high in 5th place and readying themselves for a County cup final.

Winlaton won the toss and elected to face the strong wind in the first half, the kick was blown back not made 10m so Sedgie were awarded a scrum on half way. On face value the side that made best use of the elements would likely win the game. Worryingly, Winlaton dominated the opening 20 mins and went ahead after a series of strong drives. They furthered there lead from a penalty which pushed us 0-10 behind

Sedgie were forced to defend for long periods and Winlaton looked threatening. There was an unfortunate incident where both sides became involved in a fracas, The ref rightly warning both captains that further nonsense would produce cards. Unfortunately within seconds, Michael Shepherd made a break and was hit late and high from a no arm tackle, he grabbed the tackler and Winlatons 7 came in and dived into him and started grappling with him, Shepherd took matters into his own hands and another fracas ensued. The ref called both players over with the Winlaton player continuing to point fingers and be aggressive. Shepherd was shown a red card and Winlatons player was shown only a yellow. However, The behaviour of the Winlaton player was disappointing, even after getting away the lighter he continued to show aggression as he left the field, the referee quite rightly showing the red card to him as well. Both sides were reduced to 14 men with 60 mins to play. Some reorganisation saw Ollie Lines deployed as an emergency scrum half.

This seemed to spur Sedgie on and we started to get ball on the front foot, but Winlatons defence was proving just as tough as ours. A solitary penalty from Owen Robinson was all Sedgie had for our efforts as half time approached.

Ollie Lines picked up from a ruck and broke from 20 metres and ran in under the posts and Robinsons conversion levelled the scores... I could have been even better for Sedgie when Dan Lawson drove over on the stroke of half time but the ref adjudged he was held up.

Half time 10-10. A 2nd Half facing the wind and it was going to be a challenge against a good side.

Sedgie started the 2nd half really well, Dan Lawsons driving runs were really causing Winlaton a lot of problems and everyone was working really hard, Step forward Panto Villain Graham Brennan who picked a space around the fringes and dart over. As you can imagine, he had plenty to say afterwards... The try was scored from somewhere between halfway and about 12 inches.... Ill let you decide how far it really was!

Sedgie were making better use of the ball, we have been doing loads of work on decision making in training and we were doing the right things in the right places and while Winlaton were dangerous, we were starting to really dominate posession.

Winlaton though had no answer to Dan Lawson, who again with a powerful run furthered our lead with Robinsons conversion to 22-10. Moments later we almost had a bonus point but Dan Lawson was adjudged held up again.

With Sedgie gunning for the Bonus point try an unfortunate injury to Winlatons prop saw his knee go underneath him and the ref blew early (Probably only about 2 mins). No issue with that, just hope the Winlaton lads injury isnt too serious.

Final Score 22-10 - A great 4 points for us against a side most would expect to beat us, once again we show that we can win games against good sides when we play our better rugby. I think our warm up was better this week, trying some new stuff with Aoife pre game really set us up well and it showed on the park with a really good display.

Winlaton, Im sure you will bounce back in future games. Good luck with the rest of your season and in the cup final with my old club Sunderland even though sorry Ill have to support them on the day thanks to my old allegiances!

The ref was a really young lad and I thought he managed a pretty rough game at times really well. Great to see you show the courage of your convictions with the cards, no arguments from us and it stamped out the silly stuff that was going on.

Sedgie, great result for us. We still need to stop our reaction to things, good teams will try things to stop your momentum and we need to not react to it. Too many yellows and reds that are avoidable has probably stopped us winning more games. However, Shep has held his hands up and apologised so hopefully he wont miss many games with his inevitable ban. Still dont want to detract from our win that was really positive, our game management was really good and I thought our defence was best its been all season. The lads showed really desire to get off the line and apply pressure and I felt we got our reward.

Next week we travel to Gosforth for another tough game, but I feel a win will be enough to banish the spectre of relegation for another season.

#upthesedge