Year Summary 2005
Our first season back in North One turned out to be a heady mix of excitement and frustration. We played some really good rugby, but we made some silly mistakes.
Although we'd been out of the league only two years we returned to find several new teams and a better quality of rugby. The season was a steep learning curve for most of our players, several of whom were young and new to North One, and it took us a while to adapt to the higher standard of play. We also had both half backs out with long-term injuries. As a result we lost several games we really should have won. In fact, although we lost 13 games we were outplayed in only two of them. We lost some matches in which we were ahead and looking likely winners at the three-quarter stage but we just couldn't stay the pace.
By the beginning of March it became clear that if we were going to avoid going straight back down we had to treat every remaining league game like a cup final. Pleasingly, in a spell of four consecutive victories that followed, we not only beat the champions and eventual table-toppers Preston Grasshoppers but did so with a team comprising 15 players who progressed through our Junior Section, whilst the other three were all long standing playing members.
Although we always had a points difference better than our fellow strugglers, and many members said they were always confident in our ability to retain our place in the league, in reality we were under the stark threat of relegation right until our penultimate league game, when we beat Liverpool St Helens to guarantee our safety. The feeling of jubilation at the end of that game was as good as winning promotion the year before!
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