Newcastle (H) Friday 3pm

[Wakefield Ram]

Should be a very comfortable win. Hopefully Caelum Jordan, Sam Day and maybe even Paul Sykes might get a run. And a chance to practice an attacking kicking game, run some different lines and creating overlaps.

[horbury ram]

MATCH DAY PERK | Season Ticket Holders, this one’s for you 

FREE drink this Good Friday at Evie’s Bottle Bar!

 

Bottle Bar only | One per customer | T&Cs apply

[Wakefield Ram]

2 hours ago, horbury ram said:

MATCH DAY PERK | Season Ticket Holders, this one’s for you 

FREE drink this Good Friday at Evie’s Bottle Bar!

 

Bottle Bar only | One per customer | T&Cs apply

Nice piece of promotion 

[horbury ram]

Officials for friday

• Referee: M. Mckelvey
• Reserve Referee: L. Miles
• Touch Judge 1: D. Geddes
• Touch Judge 2: S. Quarmby

[Crown Flatter]

This ought to be a convincing win, but I hope there is no complacency on our part. I do hope we try out some new moves; even a bit of simple backing up for once would bring results, but we don’t need to play like we need to score from every set.

Dewsbury 42-12 Newcastle 

FTS: Copland

MoM: Summers

Att: 540

[Phil W]

Fully expecting a convincing win for you guys tomorrow, tough for us at the moment but we'll stick behind our young group. Have done a preview below for anyone interested.

https://www.philworld.co.uk/post/dewsbury-rams-v-newcastle-thunder-and-league-1-preview

[creditwhereitsdews]

4 hours ago, Phil W said:

Fully expecting a convincing win for you guys tomorrow, tough for us at the moment but we'll stick behind our young group. Have done a preview below for anyone interested.

https://www.philworld.co.uk/post/dewsbury-rams-v-newcastle-thunder-and-league-1-preview

Good luck and enjoyed your write-up (and the parkrun piece), always like seeing the none-M62 clubs doing well, against what seems like increasing apathy (if that's possible) from the so-called heartlands clubs. Hope the Thunder are on the rise soon and look forward to visiting Newcastle in July.

Edited April 18 by creditwhereitsdews

[Phil W]

11 hours ago, creditwhereitsdews said:

Good luck and enjoyed your write-up (and the parkrun piece), always like seeing the none-M62 clubs doing well, against what seems like increasing apathy (if that's possible) from the so-called heartlands clubs. Hope the Thunder are on the rise soon and look forward to visiting Newcastle in July.

Thanks. There's still a lot of learning for our young squad. Quite a few are playing university rugby on a Wednesday while playing for Thunder. It's a big step up! 

[Ackroman]

Really enjoyed it. Took the wife and daughter as well as myself and my son who has become a proper Rams fan even though he lives 80 miles away.

One observation is the quality of the stadium and facilities. It is a gem, and a product that should attract more interest than it does. It's great vfm.

As my kids are ex Catterick Crusaders players, it was good to see Seth Clapham for Thunder. It would be great for more Noth Yorks kids to get a run at professional rugby league, so we need to back Thunder as much as we can.

[Wakefield Ram]

Thunder are a very young side and they lack size, so they were always going to struggle. Credit to them for their strong 2nd half performance esp on defence.

We didn't have to do too much, but managed to bomb quite a few chances the the 2nd half. Still no sign of a kicking game or set moves in the opposition 20. Coates and Hookem need to organise and manage the game. 

[Crown Flatter]

I was really disappointed with our second half performance; it took us 11 minutes to score, but only three in the first. Maybe Thunder increased their performance, they did seem to tackle better, or was simply us trying too hard, or perhaps playing towards the Bywell end is a bit of a hill to climb?

I hoped we would try something new today and, as pointed out by Wakefield Ram, we didn’t. I wanted to see us scoring by backing up teammates and we did on one occasion, when Hookem scored his try, but other than that, very little. 
 

Once again we played a game of charging through the middle.With the quality of the opposition today, it wasn’t a bad idea, but it seemed most of the players wanted to break through by themselves. Where was the teamwork? Obviously there was some, we scored 10 tries, but…

I am constantly surprised at the number of times the ball is lost in the tackle (lots of players in other teams do it, not just us) and it seems to be growing in popularity over recent seasons.

Well done to the Newcastle lads, they stuck with it and finally scored, much to the chagrin of home supporters.

I thought the referee had a good game. The penalty count favoured us 8-5 by my calculation.

We really must do better.

Edited April 18 by Crown Flatter

[Ackroman]

I think the Thunder had a rocket put under them at half time. They showed too much respect in the first half and came out more aggressive in the second.

An interesting observation regarding the tries Dewsbury bombed in that 2nd half. It was because we backed up and tried to keep the ball alive. If Dewsbury had played % football they would have probably scored more.

This is also a squad that takes on the line, the major benefit being a ball playing loose forward. The downside, 2 halves and a hooker who do the same. The 9, kind of needs to play that way but Hookem and Coates do need to look at their kicking options, as they both tend to drop a shoulder and try and get their noses through.

Lots to work with though. They looked much bigger, more organised, fitter and rugby intelligent than Thunder.

As I said before, the broader spectacle is very good

[Wakefield Ram]

Agree if we had stuck to just driving through we'd have scored more. But that isn't enough against better sides and like you say we made mistakes when we tried to play some rugby.

Individually we have some very good players. Interesting points you make about 6,7 and 9. Is it the coaching?

At the moment I'd say we are 50:50 on making the top 4. 

[Ackroman]

19 minutes ago, Wakefield Ram said:

Agree if we had stuck to just driving through we'd have scored more. But that isn't enough against better sides and like you say we made mistakes when we tried to play some rugby.

Individually we have some very good players. Interesting points you make about 6,7 and 9. Is it the coaching?

At the moment I'd say we are 50:50 on making the top 

Probably based on the players abilities but the team is set up for dominant, hard carries, that's for sure. The team did break the line a lot this way though, but fluffed their lines as well. 

And let's not ignore the defence, Thunder struggled to carry more than 30 metres each set.

[Wakefield Ram]

https://youtu.be/lNq9a9_ve24?si=D5nUZEPdqeFStDkZ

Highlights

Edited April 23 by Wakefield Ram

[Blind side johnny]

On 18/04/2025 at 20:32, Wakefield Ram said:

Thunder are a very young side and they lack size, so they were always going to struggle. Credit to them for their strong 2nd half performance esp on defence.

We didn't have to do too much, but managed to bomb quite a few chances the the 2nd half. Still no sign of a kicking game or set moves in the opposition 20. Coates and Hookem need to organise and manage the game. 

By now the "players are learning about each other" excuse should be over. I also would like to see something more creative emerging from the half backs.