This was our penultimate set of fixtures in this years Summer of Touch, I can’t believe how quick the season has gone. We have improved so much it’s a shame that it’s going to end. Does anybody know someone that needs a touch rugby team?

The rain poured tonight, making it a slippery night at Kingston Park. We saw a few falls and the ball was, in Evan’s words, “like a greased watermelon”. Nobody saw you drop that tap-and-go, honest. Although he made up for this by bringing in some excellent biscuits for us all!

Four GoodGymers also came to the rescue of bitter rivals Glutton Tag. The needed extra players in their hour of need. Kate and Emma stood in for the first game, while Miranda and I filled in for their last two games. We didn’t manage to collect any wins for Glutton Tag but we did get a solitary losing bonus point with a respectable 1-0 loss.

There were only two games this week which leaves time to look at some stats. Our great performance last week meant we improved our ELO standing from week 5. Newcastle Distillery and Osbit look like they had a great week and massively improved their standing. Another way to interpret this chart is to say we performed the 9th best (relative to our opposition) out of all the teams playing in week 6.

We look to be getting better at scoring tries.

While there is also a slight improvement in our defence.

Finally, we can have a quick look at the distribution of tries for the whole competition. We can take solace that the most common number of tries to be scored per team per game is 0 tries.

GoodGym Newcastle 0 – 1 Sintons

This game was amazing! This was by far the most fun I have had out on the field. Everyone was communicating perfectly. Positioning was excellent. Siobhan was particularly good at recognising the danger and closing the gaps in defence.

We let in an early try, sure. After that we were a well oiled machine. Despite the conditions, barely a single pass was dropped in attack - I’m still not sure I’ve seen Miranda drop the ball. We made use of our touches in attack and threatened their try line multiple times. Tom and Abi showed their strong running, as usual, to propel us up the field. It wasn’t to be, but we did pick up a losing bonus point for our efforts.

Tom picked up an injury during this game and left the field bleeding. We used the break to patch up his knee and enjoy Evan’s ginger biscuits.

GoodGym Newcastle 0 – 6/7 The Mutineers

This was our hard game of the night. The biggest scorers vs the biggest conceders. It didn’t feel fun at the time but the result is pretty good. I don’t know why a team like this would feel the need to showboat in front of such a wholesome charity full of sweet, innocent people like us (or why the referee would join in.)

MVP

The GoodGym Newcastle MVP for game week 7 is Nick! Nick was giving off some positive vibes from the bench today and to be honest this award has been a long time coming for our joint highest scorer.

Congratulations!🎉

Week 6 - Week 7 - Week 8