Westoe preparing to make history
SPORTING history will be made tomorrow when both cricket and rugby are staged on the same day at Wood Terrace.
Agreement having been reached with respective league officials and opponents, South Shields Second X1 will begin their first game of the season against Gateshead Fell at 9.30am, three-and-a-half hours ahead of schedule.
That will enable Westoe to kick off their National 2 North contest with title-chasing Caldy at 3.30pm, just 30 minutes later than normal.
This has rescued the rugby players from a very difficult situation created by an elongated 30-match programme, and exacerbated by the big freeze that caused the mid-winter postponement of four games.
And it will be the first time that such a sporting "double" has occurred on the ground which the cricketers first rented from the Church Commissioners way back in 1868, inviting the newly-formed rugby club to join them seven years later.
Under the rules of the South Shields and Westoe Club, which governs both factions, the ground is now the domain of the cricketers who are also allowing Gareth Nesbit's men to play their Durham Senior Cup semi-final against Billingham there on an evening to be arranged, probably next week, the winners playing Blaydon in the final.
Rugby club chairman Duncan Murray said: "We appreciate this gesture very much. It has certainly solved a very difficult problem."
Cricket club fixtures secretary Paul Stedman said: "We sympathized with the dilemma they found themselves in and while other options were explored this did seem the best way forward."
However, rugby officials still have the headache of where and when to stage their last home game against league leaders Loughborough Students. Keep watching this space.
So to the contest with Caldy, who beat Westoe 38-15 in the first game of the season and are now acknowledged as rugby top dogs of the Wirral peninsular ahead of Birkenhead Park and New Brighton, who have previously jostled for that recognition.
Having to face Macclesfield, Caldy and the Students, locked in a three-horse race for the championship, in the last five matches of the season was always going to be a formidable prospect for the Dunes Adventure Island-sponsored Shieldsmen.
Undaunted, Nesbit reckoned it would be a good gauge of how his squad, replete with new faces at the start of their first campaign at National level, had progressed.
The wheel rather came off that theory when his team, badly depleted by a rash of cry-offs and then disjointed by injuries on the day, crashed to a 58-21 defeat at Macclesfield a fortnight ago.
They go into tomorrow's clash with a stronger and better balanced side although missing two key men, shrewd back David Haswell, nursing a broken arm, and line-out ball bandit Matthew Muchall, pictured, who, as captain of South Shields Cricket Club, has had to swap his sporting allegiance.
And they are buoyed by their remarkable fightback against visitors Rugby Lions on Saturday, recovering from a 28-nil deficit after 24 minutes with a six-try salvo that saw them run out 38-35 winners.
Said Nesbit: "Caldy will provide a much more accurate estimate of our progress. People forget that we were largely a new side when we played them at the start of the season and it takes time to settle in.
"We know it will a tough challenge. The top three teams have proved themselves to be at a level above the rest of us, but last week we showed what we are capable of when we get our act together."
* The game is sponsored by Cromwell Tools Ltd.
* Two reminders: it is the charity-raising annual reunion of the former Readheads RFC tomorrow night (6 entry; all welcome) and the AGM of the South Shields and Westoe Club beginning at 7.30pm next Friday, both in the Dean Road clubhouse.
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Weather for Jarrow
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North east
